Can prohibition work? The case of India’s smokeless tobacco ban

Pankaj Chaturvedi, Sanjay Seth, Prakash C Gupta, Ashima Sarin  Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai ‘Bans don’t work’ is a common response to measures to restrict or outlaw tobacco supply. Libertarians decry such measures as excessive ‘nanny state’ intervention; others point to the USA experience of alcohol prohibition in the 1930s, often held up as a failed […]

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Point of Sale Display: A Call to Action on Prohibition of Tobacco Products in Nepal

By Amrit Banstola and Ashik Banstola In Nepal, tobacco products are smoked, inhaled, chewed, and sucked in many different forms. All forms of these tobacco products seriously damage health. In a situation where the country is undergoing a shift in burden from infectious diseases to chronic diseases, Non-Communicable Diseases [NCDs] caused by tobacco are increasingly […]

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World: US Chamber of Commerce shills for Big Tobacco

In 2009, when tobacco plain packaging legislation was first being considered in Australia, the president of the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington made a submission to the country’s preventative health taskforce, which was appointed by the Australian Government to provide recommendations about national tobacco control measures. At the time, the move by the US […]

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Should a hunger charity accept support from a tobacco company?

article by Simon Chapman, University of Sydney I recently noticed a tweet from @CareersatBAT about how British American Tobacco South Africa had packed 200,000 meals of donated food for the Million Meal Challenge being run by Stop Hunger Now Southern Africa. BAT South Africa is stamping out hunger by packing 200k meals as part of […]

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Health ministers from around the world agree plain tobacco packaging priority

In excellent news for public health and bad news for big tobacco, Yahoo! news reports: Ministers from 10 countries gathered in Paris Monday to launch a common drive to introduce plain cigarette packaging with the aim of stubbing out high smoking rates among young people. Representatives from nations as far afield as New Zealand, Australia, […]

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World Head & Neck Cancer Day, 27 July: A call for effective tobacco & areca nut control

Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, Professor and Head and Neck Surgeon at Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, India. Head and cancers are a major cause of death and disability globally, and the most common cancer in low-income countries. To draw the world’s attention to effective care and control of head and neck cancers, the International Federation of Head […]

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Big tobacco, Interpol & Codentify: potential problems with industry product tracking systems

In 2013, Tobacco Control published an article which examined Codentify, an industry tracking and tracing standard (click here for open access full text). It traces events from 2011, when Interpol accepted a substantial donation from Philip Morris International. Shortly afterwards, in 2012, Interpol announced the creation of the Interpol Global Register (IGR) to help ensure authenticity […]

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Jamaica: United Way charity under pressure over tobacco industry links

Tobacco industry corporate philanthropy and social responsibility has been under the international spotlight recently with the revelation that the American Red Cross continues to accept tobacco industry donations, despite concerns of the International Red Cross that US Red Cross risks damaging the global reputation of the network. Accepting tobacco industry donations is particularly problematic for charitable […]

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Victory for tobacco’s victims. Victory for public health. Victory for society.

by Cynthia Callard Directrice, Service d’information sur les procès du tabac Association pour la santé publique du Québec​ “Knowingly exposing people to the type of dangers that the Companies knew cigarettes represented without any precaution signals being sent is beyond irresponsible at any time of the Class Period. It is also intentionally negligent.” Justice Brian […]

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