Uganda has joined the growing movement to reduce tobacco use in Africa by enacting a comprehensive tobacco control law. A key provision of the law requires 100 percent smoke-free indoor public places, workplaces and public transport and also prohibits smoking within 50 meters of all public places. This provision and others faced strong opposition from British American Tobacco Uganda, which lobbied policymakers to provide for designated smoking areas.
In a significant victory for public health, the Republic of Moldova has passed a bold and comprehensive law aimed at reducing tobacco use and its devastating consequences. The new law was enacted despite years of opposition from the tobacco industry and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The new law will help Moldova fulfill its obligations under the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the world’s first public health treaty. Key provisions will ...
In a statement today, U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown, Richard Blumenthal, Dick Durbin, Jeff Merkley, Al Franken, Elizabeth Warren, and Sheldon Whitehouse reacted to recent reports by The New York Times exposing how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has worked systematically in countries around the world to help the tobacco industry fight life-saving measures to reduce tobacco use.
An in-depth story published today in The New York Times exposes how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has worked systematically in countries around the world to help the tobacco industry fight life-saving measures to reduce tobacco use.
The Times story examines the U.S. Chamber’s three-pronged approach to fighting back against life-saving measures to reduce tobacco use like smoke-free indoor public places, graphic warning labels on tobacco products, restrictions on tobacco marketing and increased tobacco taxes.
The U.S. Chamber’s tactics, deployed in countries ranging from Nepal to the Philippines to Uruguay, include:
When the Reynolds American tobacco company recently completed its purchase of Lorillard, Reynolds CEO Susan Cameron touted the deal as a return to the “old days” for the tobacco industry.
When it comes to Big Tobacco, the “old days” were a time when youth smoking rates were skyrocketing, the industry used cartoons and cowboys to target kids, and tobacco executives denied that smoking was addictive or caused disease.
Around the world, health advocates are fighting back against the latest youth-oriented marketing campaign for Marlboro cigarettes – and calling on governments to stop Marlboro once and for all.
For decades, the iconic Marlboro Man made Marlboro the most popular cigarette brand among youth – fueling a global epidemic that will kill one billion people this century if current trends continue.
Teen use of electronic cigarettes has skyrocketed, with the most recent surveys showing that e-cigarette use now exceeds cigarette smoking among U.S. youth.
It's not surprising. E-cigarette manufacturers continue to use marketing tactics that come right out of Big Tobacco's playbook for promoting regular cigarettes to kids. Their tactics include slick magazine ads, sponsorship of concerts and auto races, celebrity endorsements and sweet, colorful flavors.
The youth-oriented “Be Marlboro” marketing campaign from tobacco giant Philip Morris International continues to spread around the world. The latest stop: The country of Georgia.
Last month, a “Be Marlboro” promotional event was spotted in a high-end shopping mall in Tbilisi, Georgia. Located in a high traffic area, the “Be Marlboro” display featured two Ferrari race cars and a video game stand surrounded by bean bag chairs in the red and white Marlboro colors. Not surprisingly, the booth attracted the attention of children at the mall.
Tobacco use surveys conducted in low- and middle-income countries underscore the severity and scope of the global tobacco epidemic and should spur strong action by nations to reduce tobacco use and save lives.
The results of the Global Adult Tobacco Surveys (GATS) were published today in The GATS Atlas by the CDC Foundation, along with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization and the World Lung Foundation.
Ireland and the United Kingdom have become the second and third countries, after Australia, to require that cigarettes and other tobacco products be sold in plain packaging, free of free of colorful logos and other branding that encourage tobacco use.
Ireland’s president signed that country’s law last week. Britain’s Parliament gave final approval to its legislation on Monday. These laws, which take effect in May 2016, will require that cigarettes be sold in plain, standardized packaging with large, graphic health warnings.
Pakistan has announced that it will require large, graphic health warnings on all tobacco products, better informing its citizens about the deadly consequences of tobacco use.
Effective March 30, tobacco products in Pakistan must bear warning labels covering 85 percent of tobacco packaging.
With this bold move for public health, Pakistan joins India, Nepal and Thailand as the fourth country to introduce warning labels of at least 85 percent, signaling a strong commitment to reducing the death and disease caused by tobacco use.
The big tobacco companies proclaim loudly and often that they have changed and are now responsible corporate citizens.
But it took just 18 minutes for political satirist John Oliver to rip those claims to shreds and show how Philip Morris International and other tobacco companies target kids around the world and bully countries that try to save lives.
Tobacco companies claim they don’t market their products to kids, but their actions continue to show otherwise.
The latest example: Sports Illustrated’s just-published 2015 swimsuit issue, which contains an astounding seven ads for tobacco products. Amid the photos of curvaceous models in barely-there bikinis, there are two ads for cigarette brands (Natural American Spirit and Newport), three ads for the leading smokeless tobacco brands (Grizzly, Skoal and Copenhagen) and two ads for electronic cigarettes (MarkTen and blu).
February 5th marks one year since CVS announced it would stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products at its more than 7,800 CVS/pharmacy locations, making CVS/pharmacy the first national pharmacy chain to take this step. On the anniversary, the CVS Health Foundation has announced a $5 million five-year commitment to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids to launch its new “Making the Next Generation Tobacco-Free” grant program. The Foundation will partner with Tobacco-Free Kids to provide grants to organizations committed to implementing public health strategies to reduce youth tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke.
Legacy’s truth campaign is the most innovative and successful advertising campaign ever conducted to prevent youth tobacco use in the United States. So it is highly deserved that Advertising Age magazine has named truth one of the top ad campaigns of the 21st Century. We congratulate Legacy on this tremendous honor.
The truth campaign has featured such iconic ads as “Body Bags,” which used body bags being dumped outside Philip Morris headquarters to visualize the 1,200 deaths caused by tobacco use each day. These ads empowered youth to reject the manipulative tactics of the tobacco industry.
From CVS’s bold decision to end tobacco sales to once-unimaginable progress in countries such as Russia, India and China that have the world’s highest rates of tobacco use, 2014 has been a truly historic and pivotal year in the fight against tobacco.
As 2014 winds down, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids celebrates the achievements of the past year, and we renew our commitment to ending the tobacco epidemic in the United States and around the world. We are grateful to our many partners and supporters who are committed to making the next generation tobacco-free.
An estimated 2.5 million Kenyans — over 11 percent of the country’s adult population — currently use tobacco, according to the first Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) ever conducted in Kenya. This smoking rate is the highest yet shown by a GATS survey in sub-Saharan Africa, underscoring the need for Kenya to take strong action to reduce tobacco use.
Kenya’s Ministry of Health released the survey results on November 28, highlighting the urgent need for the Kenyan government to fully implement the country’s tobacco control law and address rates of tobacco use that are sure to increase as the tobacco industry sets its sights on Africa.
A recent report by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and other public health organizations exposed how Philip Morris International is conducting a global marketing campaign — called Be Marlboro — that uses themes and images that appeal to youth.
Now Philip Morris has canceled a series of concerts in Bangladesh after health advocates protested that the concerts violated the country’s tobacco control laws and marketed cigarettes to kids.
For years, the major tobacco companies have fought cigarette tax increases and other tobacco control measures by claiming they will spark massive increases in cigarette smuggling and black markets. But stories in The Wall Street Journal (subscription only), The Guardian and other media reveal that British American Tobacco (BAT), the world’s second largest multinational tobacco company, has been supporting — and profiting from — the same cigarette smuggling schemes that tobacco companies claim are caused by policies to reduce tobacco use.
For millions of fans of all ages, October means the excitement of the baseball playoffs and World Series.
For tobacco companies, it means another opportunity to target kids by associating smokeless tobacco with baseball and other sports.
This month’s issues of the two leading sports magazines, Sports Illustrated and ESPN, have included huge, two-page advertising spreads for Grizzly, which is by far the most popular smokeless tobacco brand among youth ages 12-17. Grizzly is made by American Snuff Company, a subsidiary of tobacco giant Reynolds American.