Argentina National Tobacco Control Program

An Argentine Ministry of Health program built around the country's May 2003 signing, in Geneva, of the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the first international public health treaty negotiated under WHO auspices. The Programa Nacional de Control del Tabaco took shape over the years that followed and was formalized by Ministry of Health Resolution 1124 in August 2006, working to prevent people, especially minors, from starting to smoke, to reduce tobacco consumption where it already exists, to protect the public from exposure to secondhand smoke, and to support cessation among smokers who want to quit. Its public health goals gained the force of comprehensive national law in 2011 with the enactment of Law 26,687, which regulates the advertising, promotion, sponsorship and consumption of tobacco products nationwide, addressing what public health officials had identified as easy product access, permissive social attitudes toward smoking, high rates of secondhand smoke exposure and limited cessation services as the country's core tobacco control challenges.