Finland

This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

Finland is a north European country between Sweden on the west and Russia on the east, having a population of about five million and capital city of Helsinki. According to the BBC, Finland "spends heavily on education, training and research - investment which pays dividends by delivering one of the best-educated and trained workforces in the world. This has been a key factor in the development of a modern, competitive economy in which a cutting-edge telecommunications sector has been added to the traditional timber and metals industries."

Media

The BBC says of the country's media:

Finland's broadcasting sector is very dynamic and the country is digitising its transmission network. Analogue terrestrial TV broadcasts were switched off in September 2007.

Newspapers are privately owned and reflect a range of political views.

Tobacco industry involvement

Philip Morris' "Nordic Plan"

A 1987 Philip Morris strategy report for the Nordic area outlines PM's comprehensive corporate plan to attack the secondhand smoke issue in northern Europe. Aimed at reversing the declining social acceptability of smoking in the Nordic area, the plan includes crafting a "second opinion" about the health effects of environmental tobacco smoke, or ETS, "building smokers' self-esteem," creating an "airline milieu" to use as a venue for offering their own information, putting on "healthy building seminars" using Gray Robertson's company, Air Conditioning and Ventilation Atlantic or ACVA Atlantic (which later became Healthy Buildings International, after Philip Morris took it over) and an extensive media plan aimed at assuring that PM's point of view stretched to reach virtually every citizen of northern Europe -- without anyone realizing the point of view emanated from PM. The entire document offers significant detail about PM's wide-ranging battle tactics to fight public health measures. Their plans even includes a diversionary "white-hat" proposal for currying favor among Nordic-area politicians while they clandestinely fight pro-health legislation: "Prepare plan for approaching other issues in society (AIDS, traffic, etc.), offering statistical material and helping them to get more funds for their projects."). One very telling line from the document is listed under "Tactics." It states, "4. Build IAQ [indoor air quality] industry and science without visible tobacco industry presence."

Leaders

• Tarja Halonen, President, since 2000, Finland's first woman president,
• Matti Vanhanen, Prime minister, since 2003, governs in a centre-right coalition with the conservative National Coalition Party, the Greens and the Swedish People's Party

Resources

External articles

• Richard Black, "Finland buries its nuclear past", BBC, April 27, 2006.
• Laura Smith-Spark, "Finland's trailblazing path for women", BBC, June 1, 2006.

External resources

• Finland, National Geographic, accessed February 2008.
• Timeline: Finland, BBC, accessed February 2008.