Reality: When it comes to regulating the advertising of tobacco products, Switzerland has the laxest legislation in Europe. According to the Tobacco Control Scale, which publishes a two-yearly comparative survey of the anti-tobacco-consumption policies of the various countries in the World Health Organization’s Europe Region, Switzerland came last (i.e. 36th out of 37 countries assessed) in 2021.
It is true that the present Swiss tobacco product regulations prohibit advertising that is targeted at young people. But this only applies to poster and cinema campaigns. Tobacco advertising is permitted at festivals, in freesheet publications, on the internet and on social networks – places and channels where most young people will be present or active, and will thus be directly exposed to such campaigns, which are sometimes very subtle and largely effective.
Tobacco advertising is also well to the fore in Switzerland’s dense network of almost 14 000 tobacco product retail outlets (shops, kiosks etc.), where packs of cigarettes rub shoulders with sweets, chewing gum and other candy pleasures – not to mention the country’s 17 000 tobacco product vending machines, which also double as almost poster ads for the products concerned.1
1. Swiss Tobacco : facts and figures on the new tobacco product legislation (https://www.swiss-tobacco.ch/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Faits-et-chiffres-Septembre-2016.pdf).
