Last month, the US, UK and Canada announced sanctions targeting individuals and entities understood to be financing Belarussian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. This legislation follows similar action from the EU in June. These sanctions build on reports of police violence against protesters, mass arrests and even torture, with a U.N. official comparing Belarus to a ‘totalitarian’ […]
Category: Illicit tobacco
Smuggling Networks Linked to China Tobacco Revealed in OCCRP Investigative Series
Charles Turner The China National Tobacco Corporation has grown into the world’s biggest cigarette company by feeding the addiction of China’s approximately 300 million smokers. But now the state-owned giant is ready to take over the rest of the globe. Since jumping on China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” in 2015, CNTC brands have increasingly been […]
Malaysia: did the tobacco industry collaborate with media to defeat tax increase?
Mohamad Haniki Nik Mohamed It has been five years since Malaysia last had a tobacco tax increase. The 2021 budget, announced in November 2020, was an opportunity to correct this shortcoming and use one of the most cost-effective measures available to governments to reduce smoking. Instead, tobacco taxes remained static for the sixth year. The […]
WHO Knowledge Hub on tobacco taxation and illicit trade launches e-library
Samantha Filby The WHO FCTC Secretariat’s Knowledge Hub on Tobacco Taxation and Illicit Trade, hosted by the Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products (REEP) at the University of Cape Town, recently launched an e-library on tobacco taxation and illicit trade in tobacco products. It can be accessed at https://untobaccocontrol.org/taxation/e-library/ The purpose of the […]
Illicit Tobacco Trade not exacerbated by tobacco tax increases in low & middle income countries, research shows
Priscilla Tiigah and Erika Dayle Siu The health and economic consequences of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are well documented. The question of how best to control and prevent NCDs is urgent in low-and-middle income countries (LMICs), where the burden is disproportionately rising compared to high income countries. Tobacco, the only common risk factor for the four […]
The two faces of the tobacco industry during the COVID-19 pandemic
Mateusz Zatoński, Anna B. Gilmore, Thomas R. Hird Since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020, the world’s major tobacco companies have geared their CSR efforts to present themselves as allies of public health in the fight against the virus. For example, in Georgia on 23-26 March […]
Euromonitor International now accepts tobacco industry funding: a win for PMI at the expense of research on the tobacco industry
Allen W A Gallagher and Anna B Gilmore On the 18th and 19th March 2019, respectively, the market research organisation Euromonitor International, which describes itself as “the world’s leading independent provider of strategic market research”, became the recipient of funding from not one, but two initiatives solely-funded by Philip Morris International (PMI)- the Foundation […]
The Tobacco industry’s latest scam: How Big Tobacco is still facilitating tobacco smuggling, while also attempting to control a global system designed to prevent it.
by AB Gilmore, A Rowell, University of Bath The major tobacco companies are acting as corporate chameleons, spending millions on make-overs, trying to convince the world they have changed. But shattering this expensive illusion is the latest evidence (published this week in Tobacco Control) uncovering one of their greatest scams: not only are tobacco companies […]
South Africa: the complex politics impeding tobacco control progress
Yussuf Saloojee National Council Against Smoking South Africa has long been a front runner in tobacco control in Africa. It was an early adopter of comprehensive legislation, which resulted in a 40% drop in cigarette smoking prevalence, and, in turn, between 1997 and 2010, in declines in mortality from lung and oesophageal cancer, stroke, […]
Reports, interviews and photos from #WCTOH2018 Uniting the World for a Smoke Free Generation
The 17th World Conference on Tobacco or Health was held in Cape Town, South Africa from 7-9 March 2018. It was a landmark event in tobacco control; the first time the conference has been held on the African continent – where the tobacco industry is aggressively expanding new markets – and the first to have […]