Author: Chris Bostic, Policy Director, Action on Smoking and Health

The FCTC changed the world and my life.

I had a strange start to my career in tobacco policy. My very first exposure to that cause and community was not as a local volunteer or through a college internship. It was straight into the cauldron of the negotiations of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. It forever altered my intended path in life, and I’m eternally grateful for that.

My experience with the FCTC negotiations was different than most in that I knew nothing about tobacco control or public health. I had been recruited from a law school human rights clinic by Judy Wilkenfeld of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids to examine and monitor the treaty mechanics during negotiations, to help ensure that the purposes of the Convention were not foiled by the fine print (as it turned out, there were several attempts to do just that).

I was in awe of the advocates – very recently self-designated as the Framework Convention Alliance on Tobacco Control (FCA) – that I met in Geneva. Here was a small group of doctors, lawyers, researchers, activists and public health experts that had put their lives on hold to challenge one of the most powerful industries in the world, backed by some of the most powerful governments in the world. The FCA was amazingly welcoming and patient with me, and many that I met then I still consider friends and mentors nearly a quarter century later.

The FCTC has changed the battlefield of the tobacco wars, but not just because of its Articles, Guidelines and decisions. It also irrevocably galvanized the global tobacco control community, combining its fragments into a whole much more powerful and effective than the sum of its parts. Particularly incredible to me is the fact that the people I considered the wise elders of the movement in 2001 are still fighting. I feel a debt to them that can only be repaid by staying in the fight until the fight is won.