The Epidemic That Kills Over Eight Million People
The Government of Jamaica has drafted a Tobacco Bill, which will be introduced and debated in Parliament in the coming weeks. The bill aims at protecting Jamaicans from the harmful effects of tobacco use and exposure to smoke. We expect a robust discussion from the deliberations of a Joint Select Committee of Parliament and...
South Africa is possibly the world’s largest black market for cigarettes
Forcing smokers to buy illegally during the tobacco ban has normalised the act of selling and buying illicit brands for both retailers and consumers, costing the fiscus some R8 billion a year, a new report states. An investigation by corruption-busting group Tax Justice SA (TJSA) has found that two of every three cigarettes sold in...
Is vaping just another smokescreen from big tobacco?
Veteran investment writer Marc Hasenfuss recently wrote in the FM how British American Tobacco (BAT) believes it can generate £5bn from new category brands like Vype, Vuse, glo and Velo by 2025. Apparently, BAT is now telling consumers that the best way to avoid the health risks of smoking is not to simply quit. Rather,...
Bangladesh: Call for amending tobacco control law to ensure public health safety
Strong measures need to be taken for reducing tobacco use and turning Bangladesh into a tobacco-free country by 2040, say anti-tobacco campaigners The existing tobacco control law of the country is not adequate and it should be amended in order to save the public from the harmful effects of tobacco products, according to experts. Anti-tobacco campaigners...
Youth e-cig use triples likelihood of daily cig smoking
The evidence that e-cigarettes are a gateway for smoking is strong and consistent. Now John Pierce and his colleagues have made that connection even stronger by showing that e-cigarette use strongly predicts daily cigarette smoking. (Previous studies measured current cigarette smoking, meaning in the past 30 days.) Their paper, “Use of E-cigarettes and Other...
USA: Biden Has a Duty to Nicotine Users
The coming presidency of Joe Biden is a new chapter in American history, hopefully closing a divisive chapter of hate among fellow citizens and a lack of basic human decency in the Oval Office. That means new regulations, new executive orders, and President-elect Biden’s highly anticipated legislative priorities for domestic policy. Since the world...
Egypt: Cigarette prices up EGP 0.25 to finance healthcare insurance programme
Egypt is set to increase the prices of local and imported cigarettes by EGP 0.25/pack in July 2021, local media sources have reported. The proceeds of the increase will be directed to the Ministry of Finance, and will contribute to funding for the Universal Healthcare Insurance programme. The programme was launched in July 2018, where...
TCRA research: Burkinabé researcher looks at why local school children are using tobacco
Why do young people smoke? This is a question that has baffled many tobacco control researchers, hoping to discourage adolescents and young people from taking up a harmful that can have negative consequences on their health later in life. Studies in Côte d’Ivoire have shown that factors such as curiosity and snobbery as well as other...
Dirty Money and Shady Spending: How the Tobacco Industry Gets Its Way
The tobacco industry isn’t shy about the mega-profits it rakes in year after year; major tobacco companies routinely and proudly boast their multi-billion-dollar-revenues to their stakeholders. But what they don’t like to advertise, at least not to the public, is how they got rich: by knowingly addicting people to their products and preying on...
India: Smoking can’t protect against Covid, it makes antibodies disappear — Experts on CSIR study
A CSIR study said smokers had low seroprevalence. But doctors said smoking reduces immunity, which makes antibodies disappear faster — which is why seroprevalence may be lower. New Delhi: Health experts have countered a pan-India CSIR serosurvey that said smokers were found to have lower seroprevalence, indicating that they are at lesser risk of contracting...
