A campaign launched at the World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Cape Town, South Africa in March, is aimed at separating the tobacco industry from the vendors that make their dirty work possible, especially advertising agencies. Quit Big Tobacco is an initiative of Vital Strategies. It is calling on non-profit organizations with health in their […]
Category: Legislation and Policy
Tobacco industry investment in electronic nicotine delivery devices: an evolving strategy
Benjamin Hawkins, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Ben.Hawkins@lshtm.ac.uk Ross MacKenzie, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia British American Tobacco’s (BAT) decision to divest its interests in its Voke inhaler and reports that e-Voke (from here referred to collectively as Voke), the first electronic nicotine delivery (END) system to receive a medical licence, is unlikely to ‘see the light of […]
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, […]
Austria: government chooses tobacco industry interests over citizens’ health
German version (click here) Austria achieved a dismal milestone in March 2018, when its government overturned modest (and long overdue) legislation for smoke free hospitality venues. The new laws had been due to come into force in May 2018. Among high income countries, Austria already stood as a grim example of woefully inadequate tobacco control. […]
Österreich: Regierung entscheidet für Interessen der Tabakindustrie und gegen die Gesundheit der Bürger
Rauchverbot-Volksbegehren: https://dontsmoke.at/ MedizinerInnen kontra Rauchen: Jährlich 6 Millionen Todesfälle durch Tabakkonsum, 14.000 in Österreich Österreich hat im März 2018 einen tristen Meilenstein erreicht, als seine Regierung die bescheidene (und längst überfällige) Gesetzgebung für rauchfreie Gaststätten annullierte. Das neue Gesetz sollte im Mai 2018 in Kraft treten. Unter den Ländern mit hohem Einkommen war Österreich bereits ein […]
A New Front – and a New Ally – in the Tobacco Wars
Submitted by: Human Rights and Tobacco Control Network, Action on Smoking and Health (US) and Unfairtobacco The 17th World Conference on Tobacco or Health concluded in South Africa on March 9th by adopting the Cape Town Declaration on Human Rights and a Tobacco-Free World. The Declaration, proposed by the Human Rights and Tobacco Control Network, […]
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 […]
Austria’s new government: a victory for the tobacco industry and public health disaster?
Manfred Neuberger In Austria the conservative Austrian People’s Party (Oesterreiche Volkpartei, OeVP) won the 2017 elections, and negotiated with the third-largest party, the right-wing nationalist Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Oesterreichs, FPOe) to form a new government. In its election campaign, the FPOe had promised to attack the tobacco law, which had been […]
Fake news: is smoking really increasing in Australia?
Author: Simon Chapman AO This blog post originally appeared on Doctor Portal and is published here with permission. ON 14 August, 2017, The Australian newspaper ran a story guaranteed to go viral. The headline screamed: “More smokers lighting up, despite the costs”. The journalist, Adam Creighton, who has, grotesquely, written about tobacco control being like […]
India: steep decline in tobacco consumption in India reported in second Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS 2017)
Authors: Chaturvedi Pankaj , Sarin Ashima, Seth Sanjay, Gupta PC On 8th June 2017, results from the second Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS 2) of India were released. GATS is a global standard for systematically monitoring adult tobacco use and tracking key tobacco control indicators. India is the world’s largest democracy, and the second largest […]