In the coming weeks, Cambodia's cabinet will receive a draft bill that is designed to control tobacco advertising and sponsorship.
It's been a long time coming - health campaigners have wanted stringent regulations against tobacco for more than a decade.
Presenter: Robert Carmichael
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CARMICHAEL: Cambodia has one of the highest smoking rates in Asia, with almost one male in two above the age of 15 lighting up regularly. So it's no surprise that anti-smoking campaigners have hailed this impoverished nation's move towards a comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising over the next six months. Dr Mom Kong heads the Cambodian Movement for Health, a non-governmental organization that campaigns against the twin scourges of tobacco and alcohol.
He says the methods that tobacco firms use vary from impersonal billboard advertising to one-on-one pressurized marketing efforts that involve young women handing out free smokes in restaurants.
But there is one method that riles the soft-spoken health campaigner even more than that.
KONG: I notice one that is very crucial for Cambodian teenagers and children to start smoking is the pop concert. The tobacco industry invites the young celebrity to propaganda about tobacco product. And in one concert you can see thousands of youth including children and women, and you just imagine in one concert only maybe 1 or 2 percent of the audience start to smoke, how many children, teenager of Cambodia become a smoker?
CARMICHAEL: The new sub-decree to ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship specifically outlaws stunts such as that. The Minister for Health says the sub-decree will soon head to the Council of Ministers for approval.
Also barred would be advertising of any description, which means the glamorous billboard posters around the country that tout smoking would have to go. The sub-decree is the second part of the government's efforts to cut smoking. Two months ago another law came into effect that compels tobacco companies to place large written warnings of the dangers of smoking on each pack of cigarettes. It is the sort of step welcomed by Dr Yel Daravuth, the tobacco control expert at the World Health Organization's office in Phnom Penh.
A former smoker, Dr Yel applauds the government's efforts to get Cambodia in line with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which it ratified in 2005. He says banning advertising is a proven way to cut smoking rates.
DARAVUTH: We found that in a developing country is that if a country has a total ban on advertising, tobacco promotion and sponsorship, the result within 10 years for a developing country they can get smoking prevalence go down 8 percent, compared to a country have no total ban only 1 percent.
CARMICHAEL: Dr Yel says the example of neighbouring Thailand shows that increasing taxes on cigarettes is another proven way to cut smoking rates and raise government revenue.
The government's aim over the next five years is to reduce the smoking prevalence by 5 percent. Dr Yel says doing so should help cut poverty rates too.
DARAVUTH: We can find that smokers spend at least 9 percent of the income that they earn every day to buy cigarettes - a huge amount of their money. Can use for education, support the child to study, the family, the food - it's very important.
CARMICHAEL: Tobacco companies will have little choice but to comply - earlier this month the Minister of Health, Dr Mam Bun Heng, warned that penalties for companies that flout the law would be severe, and said repeat offenders would eventually lose their business licence.
So what does Big Tobacco think? British American Tobacco, one of the world's biggest, has the lion's share of the Cambodian cigarette market, and says it welcomes the ban provided it is applied to all players.
But the company is still angling for an exemption of sorts. BAT's head of corporate affairs, Kun Lim, says the firm wants the government to permit point-of-sale advertising.
At this stage it is unclear whether that will be allowed - Dr Mom Kong reckons the Framework Convention does not permit point-of-sale.
But the game is changing for tobacco firms, even in impoverished nations such as Cambodia. Almost a dozen government ministries have implemented smoke-free rules, and no-smoking signs in shopping malls, coffee-shops and restaurants are no longer unusual.
The final shape of the sub-decree will become clear later this year once it is approved, but whatever shape it takes, campaigners expect smoking rates will go down.
And that could yet include the nation's most famous smoker. Prime Minister Hun Sen's battle against cigarettes is well-known, and earlier this year he admitted he still hadn't managed to kick the habit - although he had cut down.
But he had good advice for young Cambodians considering taking up the habit: Don't start smoking in the first place.
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