Ghana: Stakeholders discuss tobacco taxation to reduce tobacco consumption
The Vision for Alternative Development (VALD)/Tax Advocacy Network for Health Promotion has held a national stakeholders meeting on tobacco taxation to help reduce tobacco consumption in Ghana. The non-governmental organization is undertaking a tobacco taxation project in the country under the auspices of the Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA), with support from Bill and Melinda...
Kenya: Thinktank says new law favours tobacco firms
The International Institute of Legislative Affairs (ILA) has poked holes into the Finance Act 2021, saying some changes in the law will favour tobacco businesses. The Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) whose work is in policy and research argues that while the government is mandated to make laws that discourage tobacco intake, some aspects of the Act...
Smoking-related cancer twice as prevalent among poor in England
Overall cancer rates are higher among the wealthy, finds Cancer Research UK – but smoking and its cancers are now concentrated among the poor. Smoking causes almost twice as many cancer cases among the poor than the well-off, according to new findings that underline the close link between cigarettes and deprivation. About 11,247 cases of cancer...
Big Tobacco’s price games undermine tobacco taxation
Taxation is the most effective form of tobacco control, but the tobacco industry uses a variety of sophisticated pricing strategies to undermine tax increases. When a government budget announces an increase on the price of a packet of cigarettes, the tobacco company just passes it on to the consumer, right? No, not quite, according to...
Opinion: Looking away will not end child labor in tobacco fields
The tobacco industry likes to portray itself as a positive economic force. Yet tobacco farmers across Africa face a harsh economic reality: The industry derives such huge profits in part because it maneuvers to pay as little as possible for the crop that is the basis for its products. This practice is unfair and perpetuates inequality. What’s...
PMI’s surprise embrace of a cigarette-free future must not distract from tobacco control
As its behaviour in emerging markets makes clear, the tobacco industry's post-cigarette rhetoric only seems to apply to the Western markets where it is losing ground. The CEO of Philip Morris International (PMI), Jacek Olczak, has made a surprising request for the UK government to abolish traditional cigarettes by 2030–including his own. The tobacco executive told the Mail...
WHO awards Botswana activist for anti-tobacco advocacy
Botswana’s renowned anti-tobacco activist Alice Mbongwe has received special recognition from World Health Organization (WHO) for her advocacy on tobacco control. Mbongwe is an employee of University of Botswana (UB) and also director of the Anti-Tobacco Network (ATN). Josephine Namboze, WHO executive director for Botswana on Tuesday said Mbongwe is one of six African awardees this...
Nigeria: ‘FG should anticipate pushback over pictorial warnings on tobacco products’
Chibuike Nwokorie is the Project Officer with the Nigeria Tobacco Control Alliance, NTCA. In this interview, he bares his mind on the new policy on Pictorial Health Warnings, PHWs, which must be on all tobacco products manufactured and sold in Nigeria starting June 23, and other sundry issues on tobacco control in Nigeria. Excerpts: How do...
