Seen elsewhere

Vingt ans après avoir signé la Convention-cadre de l’OMS pour la lutte antitabac, la Suisse n’a pas ratifié ce traité et reste en retard sur la prévention. Sous l’influence des cigarettiers, le pays privilégie les intérêts économiques, avec des mesures jugées insuffisantes, tandis que 20 000 jeunes tombent chaque année dans l’addiction. Hugo Molineaux, chercheur pour OxySuisse, était notre invité.

Die Tabakindustrie spendet Millionen an Hilfswerke. Auch verschiedene Rotkreuz-Organisationen haben über Jahre Geld von Tabakfirmen angenommen – und das, obwohl das Rote Kreuz auch eine Gesundheitsorganisation ist. Erst 2021 hat der Rotkreuz-Rat entschieden, keine Tabak-Spenden mehr anzunehmen.

Im Wallis dürfen Tabakfirmen keine Musikfestivals sponsern. Trotzdem war British American Tobacco am Caprices Festival präsent. Die Beobachter-Recherche zeigt die Hintergründe.

If you ever find yourself browsing the galleries at the British Museum in London, or wandering the halls of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, you might find it surprising that the art you’re admiring is sponsored in part by an industry that causes 8 million deaths every year.

Bangkok, 29 April 2024 – The tobacco industry is using corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities as a tactical smokescreen to clean its tarnished public image and distract the public from its deadly and harmful business, according to the report, “Lifting the Veil of Tobacco Industry’s Corporate Charity in ASEAN” by the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA). The report examines the detrimental impact of the industry’s CSR activities on public health policy.

“The opioid crisis is horrific. It has been estimated that prescription opioids have killed more than more than 200,000 Americans and 47,000 lives are expected to be lost in 2019 due to opioid addiction. No similar outrage has been expressed by artists, health organizations or the public at the most dominant corporate sponsor of the arts in the United States over the past 60 years, Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris and makers of the top-selling cigarette brand Marlboro.”

-Alan Blum, MD

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to voluntary corporate action that claims to act in the public interest by prioritising social goals rather than being solely profit-driven.

Two big UK tobacco companies have failed to persuade the high court to strike out a case against them that alleges they are responsible for the exploitation of Malawian farming families and child labour in their drive for profits.

According to the World Health Organization ( WHO ), tobacco kills nearly six million people a year, including more than 600,000 non-smokers exposed to second-hand smoke.

Increasingly, international health bodies frame public health measures, including tobacco control, in the context of human rights (HR). It is unclear how prevalent is the connection between human rights and tobacco control within global health governance. This paper describes the inclusion of HR in tobacco control governance, and the inclusion of tobacco control in HR treaty oversight. We depict the current reach of HR’s normative influence in framing the tobacco epidemic in global, regional, and country-specific contexts.

In Africa, tobacco farmers can become entangled in a cycle of debt and poverty amounting to slavery. Tobacco companies control the entire process—from granting loans for fertilizer and seeds to setting the price the farmer is paid at harvest. Because farmers don’t earn enough to employ workers, or even to afford gear to protect against sharp tools and chemicals, they often pull children from school to perform the dangerous work of tobacco farming.

By making legal threats and lobbying politicians, the tobacco industry worked to undermine a radical new bill to create a “smoke free” generation, documents show.

The tobacco industry has a long history of manipulating science to conceal the harms of its products. As part of its proclaimed transformation, the world’s largest tobacco company, Philip Morris International (PMI), states it conducts “transparent science.” This paper uses recently leaked documents from PMI and its Japanese affiliate, Philip Morris Japan (PMJ), to examine its contemporary scientific practices.

The tobacco industry says it no longer tries to hook new generations of smokers. So what’s behind the legions of beautiful young people in smoking, vaping and partying posts with the same hashtags?

An anti youth-vaping advocate says the government needs to do more to stop advertisers from illegally targeting children. A University of Auckland study found youth aged between 14 and 17 - especially Māori and Pasifika teens - were more likely to see vaping ads than those aged 18 to 20.Researchers surveyed more than 3500 people aged between 14 and 20.

Report claims posts promoting smoking alternatives have been viewed more than 3.4bn times across social media

New report details how Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco reach young people on social media – nearly half of audience is under 25

This year’s World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) focusses on the tobacco industry’s continued targeting of young people, whose addiction to nicotine will help ensure the industry’s on-going profitability.

Tobacco companies have decades of experience marketing their products to kids and teens. From ad campaigns to product placement to cartoon characters, Big Tobacco has spent big bucks on getting kids to start smoking.

31 May is the World No Tobacco Day (WNTD). This year, once again, WHO and public health champions from across the globe will come together to raise awareness about the harmful influences of the tobacco industry on youth.

Tobacco giant Philip Morris has been ordered to pay the Australian government millions of dollars after unsuccessfully suing the nation over its world-first plain-packaging laws.

In the latest Global Tobacco Interference Index 2023, Switzerland comes in second-last place once again (89/90), only just ahead of the Dominican Republic. Due to the larger number of countries included in the index, Switzerland has dropped another 10 places. This illustrates once again that the tobacco industry's influence on politics in Switzerland remains undiminished and continues to prevent effective tobacco control that protects people from tobacco's deadly products.

The tobacco industry threatens not only public health, it also causes economic strain and next generation addiction. It seeks to sabotage health policies, affects the environment in negative ways, and its dirty money buys influence, promotes misleading narratives, takes advantage of loopholes and pays for tactics to sabotage tobacco control.

Stuffing cigarette butts into the lining of nests may seem unwholesome. But a team of ecologists says that far from being unnatural, the use of smoked cigarettes by city birds may be an urban variation of an ancient adaptation.

Cigarette filters are the world's most common form of litter. Researchers from the University of Gothenburg can now show that the filters leak thousands of toxins and plastic fibers that are toxic to aquatic larvae.

Plastic straws and bags have received widespread attention as pollutants. But another, even bigger, plastic problem has been slipping under the radar – cigarette filters. Cigarette butts containing plastic filters are the most littered item in the world.

Trillions of cigarette butts are thrown into the environment every year, where they leach nicotine and heavy metals before turning into microplastic pollution.

Since May 2018, the EU has been trying to tackle the top 10 types of litter found on Europe’s beaches – the second most common being cigarette butts. As part of the European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy, it introduced a major directive aiming to phase out unnecessary single-use plastics.

Here are some hard truths about tobacco from the World Health Organization (WHO): Tobacco use is responsible for over eight million deaths globally every year.