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Here are some facts about the effects of smoking and tobacco on Asians and Pacific Islanders.

Sent approximately February 6, 1997 -- giving RJ Reynolds 30 days to withdraw Camel mentholated cigarettes. As a result, RJ Reynolds met with Rev. Brown and NAAAPI. The issue is still under debate.

Asian community leaders -- mindful of ''World No Tobacco Day'' on May 31 -- say their battle to reduce high smoking rates among Asian Americans is making inroads but can't succeed as long as cigarette advertisers keep targeting their neighborhoods.

While the tobacco settlement in the US is termed, ''a landmark agreement once unimaginable'' and a ''turn around'' we here in Asia cannot remotely share in the rejoicing. On the contrary what it means is we have to brace ourselves for a further onslaught of more aggressive marketing of American cigarettes here.

''The unheralded scandal of the tobacco industry is the damage to land in developing nations'' was the message of a presentation delivered at the Fifth World Conference on Smoking and Health in Canada on July 12, 1983.(1) This discussion paper will adddress, in more detail, the links with tobacco and deforestation, pesticide use, land use, environmental degradation, fires, litter and pollution.

According to the World Health Organization, in 25 years tobacco related disease will kill 8.4 million people annually -- more than 3.5 times the number of people it kills today. Most of this increase will occur in developing countries where the Tobacco Industry has been working hard to open markets to promote its product, especially to women and youth, to ensure its profits.

Here is a statement from John R. Garrison, the CEO of the American Lung Association on the global tobacco bailout.

The next step in the national Say No to Menthol Joe Community Crusade is to apply pressure to the Walgreens Pharmacy chain to get them to stop carrying Camel menthols. Remember we are not going against all Camels in this action because the other versions have loyal followings. We are going against Camel menthols and menthol lights to get a clear victory against Big Tobacco.

Many individuals and organizations within communities of color in the United States are concerned about the content and form of negotiations that are currently underway between the tobacco industry and attorneys general and lawyers for victims of tobacco.

The Tobacco Industry and its allies use economic analysis to argue against tobacco control policies by stating that they will create havoc on jobs, tax revenues, tobacco farmers and the economy in general. These same arguments are used around the world to promote tobacco production and industry in countries that could put their resources to more humane and health promoting uses.

Regulations on the local, State, National, and International level have been enacted as evidence mounts on the dangers of smoking to smokers and nonsmokers alike. These regulations have, in large part, been initiated by local communities.

To get some perspective on the deal negotiated with the tobacco industry CorpWatch spoke with Stanton Glantz, Professor of Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco. Glantz, a long-time tobacco crusader, is the author of the Cigarette Papers, the published version of internal documents leaked to him from the Brown and Williamson tobacco corporation.

Excerpted from the San Francisco's Forum On Global Tobacco Control Policies. Dr. Judith Mackay looks at the ''New Opium War.''

As 33% of San Franciscans are immigrants, the Coalition believes that it must think globally and act locally in the development of a Global Tobacco Control Policy Framework.

The following is excerpted from the World Health Organization's Tobacco Use: A Public Health Disaster.

The following tobacco industry facts were excerpted with permission from INFACT's web site. INFACT is a national grassroots corporate watchdog organization founded in 1977.

The San Francisco Tobacco Free Coalition will actively work in solidarity with domestic and international grassroots communities, groups, organizations, government agencies, and Ministries of Health to promote social, economic, and environmental justice. As 33% of San Franciscans are immigrants, the Coalition believes that it must think globally and act locally in the development of a Global Tobacco Control Policy Framework.