Break the cigarette habit, break the power of Big Tobacco
We hold the tobacco industry accountable for its harms and support efforts around the world to address industry interference in governments’ actions to deter tobacco consumption.
Countering tobacco industry interference in tobacco control policies is a challenge faced by all countries working to reduce tobacco use. The industry aggressively targets both consumers—through advertising—and governments—directly with threats of litigation and indirectly via front groups ranging from think tanks to the hospitality industry.
How we work
Revealing insidious industry tactics
Highlighting publication of “The Crooked Nine: Nine Ways the Tobacco Industry Undermines Health Policy,” the first major report released by Stopping Tobacco Organizations and Products (STOP), an industry watchdog in partnership with Vital Strategies.
Hosting a two-day workshop in Jakarta in 2018 where students from five universities planned #TheyLieWeDie, a campaign on their campuses using art and a “Drop Dead” action to underscore the tobacco industry’s deceptions and manipulations to attract more smokers.
Partnering with STOP on the fact sheet “How the Tobacco Industry Uses Farmers to Influence Policy,” which reveals how the industry reframes policies to reduce tobacco use as policies that will harm tobacco farmers’ livelihoods and pays purportedly independent organizations to oppose those policies.
Funding the Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s “Smoke Screen” project revealing the duplicity in Philip Morris International’s pretensions to “Unsmoke Your World” by promoting a variety of new heated tobacco products as replacements for cigarettes.
Compiling the Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index, an international scorecard highlighting how well governments are resisting industry interference. Covering 90 countries, the Index can be used as a key advocacy tool, empowering tobacco control advocates to learn from international successes.
Releasing “British American Tobacco Uncovered,” a series of investigative reports, STOP exposed potentially illegal payments and surveillance to undermine competitors and perpetuate tobacco addiction across Africa.
Working with local partners in Central Java to help approximately 2,500 farmers shift or diversify their former tobacco crops to more sustainable alternatives like coffee, sweet potatoes and other vegetables—a program that countered industry messages about tobacco farming.
Publishing “How Big Tobacco Uses Disruptive Tactics To Deny Child Rights To Be Tobacco-Free” in the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease and creating a fact sheet about how to counter such tactics.
Funding a yearlong investigation and report by Ethos Public Lab that exposed how ostensibly independent pro-vaping groups in Mexico and other countries were actually financed by the tobacco industry and inspired a more comprehensive report with policy recommendations for foiling industry tactics.
Sharing proven strategies by providing resources and research
Producing a toolkit with guidance for governments based on the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Article 5.3, to safeguard laws and policies from industry interference.
Partnering with Uruguay’s Ministry of Health to conduct a three-day training on tobacco industry interference in public health policymaking for government officials from across Latin America, who developed strategic plans for dealing with industry tactics in their own countries.
Recommending that governments adopt tobacco vendor licensing policies—which have the effect of decreasing points-of-sale—and that they strategize to outmaneuver industry opposition to such policies.
Achieving almost 23 million website views, STOP’s “Hooking You One Way Or Another” campaign included the timely resource “Modern Addiction: Myths and Facts About How the Tobacco Industry Hooks Young Users.“
This new film by award-winning director Roy Maconachie, the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath and tobacco industry watchdog STOP (in which Vital Strategies is a partner) had its premiere at our VitalTalksLive event.
The exploitive practices of colonial-era tobacco companies continue even today
This new film by award-winning director Roy Maconachie, the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath and tobacco industry watchdog STOP (in which Vital Strategies is a partner) had its premiere at our VitalTalksLive event.
The film provides firsthand accounts from farmers in Malawi who expose how the tobacco giant Imperial Brands and other companies profit from contract systems that can keep tobacco farmers trapped in poverty.
