REGULATORY CAPTURE: Global tobacco treaty leaders propose ejecting delegates with ties to industry.

The proposed restriction highlights a growing battle between the industry and backers of the treaty, which went into effect in 2005 to guide national laws and policies in an effort to curb tobacco use, which kills an estimated 6 million people a year worldwide.

The global tobacco industry is estimated to be worth nearly US$800 billion this year.

The International Tobacco Growers Association, a nonprofit group partly funded by big international cigarette companies, said the proposal was “beyond the wildest imagination”.

António Abrunhosa, chief executive of the group and a Portuguese tobacco grower, said in an email to Reuters that such a step was “unthinkable for a United Nations agency”.

We have wars on tobacco, drugs, poverty, terrorism — and we aren’t winning any of them.