An anti-smoking advocacy group says the United States – whose regulations once set the global standard for tobacco control best practices – is falling behind when it comes to protecting its citizens from the harms of tobacco.

Action on Smoking & Health (ASH), an organization devoted to the fight against the domestic and global tobacco epidemic, released a report entitled The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC): An Implementation Guide for U.S. State and Local Officials. The report applies international and domestic examples of best practice measures to reduce tobacco consumption, derived from the WHO FCTC, to U.S. state and local laws. 

The FCTC) is the first global treaty on public health. It establishes up specific steps for governments to address the tobacco epidemic, including: