Memoranda of understanding: a tobacco industry strategy to undermine illicit tobacco trade policies

Tobacco industry strategies to influence the regulation of new and emerging tobacco and nicotine products in Latin America and the Caribbean

Objective

To document tobacco industry strategies to influence regulation of new and emerging tobacco and nicotine products (NETNPs) in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Methods

We analyzed industry websites, advocacy reports, news media and government documents related to NETNPs, focusing on electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products. We also conducted a survey of leading health advocates. We applied the policy dystopia model to analyze industry action and argument-based strategies on NETNP regulations.

Results

Industry actors engaged in four instrumental strategies to influence NETNP regulation - coalition management, information management, direct involvement in and access to the policy process, and litigation. Their actions included: lobbying key policy-makers, academics and vaping associations; providing grants to media groups to disseminate favorable NETNP information; participating in public consultations; presenting at public hearings; inserting industry-inspired language into draft NETNP legislation; and filing lawsuits to challenge NETNP bans. The industry disseminated its so-called harm reduction argument through large/influential countries (e.g., Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico). Industry discursive strategies claimed NETNPs were less harmful, provided safer alternatives, and should be regulated as so-called harm reduction products or have fewer restrictions on their sale and use than those currently in place.

Conclusion

Our analysis provides a better understanding of industry strategies to undermine tobacco and nicotine control. To help counter industry efforts, health advocates should proactively strengthen government capacities and alert policy-makers to industry attempts to create new regulatory categories (so-called reduced-risk products), provide misleading information of government authorizations of NETNPs, and co-opt so-called harm-reduction messages that serve the industry's agenda.

Tobacco industry corporate social responsibility activities and other interference after ratification of a strong tobacco law in Ethiopia

BACKGROUND

Since strict new tobacco control laws were introduced in 2019 and 2020, the National Tobacco Enterprise (NTE), the main manufacturer and distributor of cigarettes in Ethiopia, strategically engaged in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and other tactics to interfere in tobacco control policymaking. This study systematically identified and reviewed tobacco industry activities that undermine Ethiopia's strict new tobacco control laws.

METHODS

We collated, reviewed and analysed evidence on tobacco industry CSR activities from February 2019 to November 2022 in Ethiopia, including newspapers, organisational websites, social media and government documents related to tobacco industry activities, contract agreements and other policy interference attempts.

RESULTS

NTE's CSR activities included: (1) Funding educational programmes (eg, postgraduate scholarships); (2) Community service (eg, donating COVID-19 prevention materials, providing water, sanitation and hygiene supplies); and (3) Supporting government programmes (eg, greening initiatives and training programmes). NTE facilitated CSR activities via a contract agreement with the Ethiopian government that was created when Japan Tobacco International purchased the Government's majority share in NTE. NTE subsequently partnered with the Japanese Embassy in Addis Ababa and private law firms on CSR activities. The tobacco control community stopped NTE distributing free COVID-19 prevention products in Addis Ababa but had limited impact on other identified breaches of laws prohibiting tobacco advertising promotion and sponsorship.

CONCLUSION

The new laws have not stopped NTE using multiple CSR activities to interfere in tobacco control policy. Regular monitoring of tobacco industry CSR activities to identify potential breaches is recommended. Moreover, the Ethiopian government should revise its contractual agreement with NTE to end NTE's participation in law-making processes and partnerships on illicit tobacco control.

'They have a right to participate as a stakeholder': Article 5.3 implementation and government interactions with the tobacco industry in Ethiopia

INTRODUCTION

This paper explores implementation of Article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in Ethiopia. The analysis highlights how operationalising key requirements of Article 5.3, such as minimising policy engagement with the tobacco industry, has been mediated by path-dependent processes of stakeholder consultation and collaboration that have persisted following privatisation of Ethiopia's state-owned tobacco monopoly.

METHODS

We conducted semistructured interviews with key officials (n=21) working in tobacco control policy, with high levels of access secured across ministries and agencies beyond health.

RESULTS

We found contrasting levels of awareness of Article 5.3 across government sectors, with extremely limited awareness in departments beyond health. The data also highlight competing ideas about conflict of interest, in which recognition of a fundamental conflict of interest with the tobacco industry is largely confined to health actors. Beyond limited cross-sectoral awareness and understanding of Article 5.3, gaps in implementation are exacerbated by assumptions and practices around stakeholder consultation, in which attempts to minimise policy interactions with the tobacco industry are mediated by institutionally embedded processes that presume active engagement. The results also highlight a continuation of the close relationship between the Ethiopian government and tobacco monopoly following its privatisation.

CONCLUSION

The Ethiopian government's recent achievements in tobacco control legislation require that policymakers are actively supported in reconciling perceived tensions and requirements for stakeholder consultation. Effective tobacco control governance would be further enhanced by enabling government agencies to more clearly identify which interactions with the tobacco industry are strictly necessary under Article 5.3 guideline recommendations.

Understanding the long-term policy influence strategies of the tobacco industry: two contemporary case studies

OBJECTIVE

This paper explores transnational tobacco companies' (TTCs) long-term policy influence strategies using two case studies, harm reduction and illicit tobacco, to identify lessons for the tobacco control movement and wider efforts to address the commercial determinants of health.

METHODS

Evidence from a broad combination of sources including leaked documents and findings from over two decades of TTC monitoring were reviewed for each case study and categorised using the Policy Dystopia Model, focusing on the primary discursive strategy and key instrumental (action-based) strategies used.

RESULTS

In both case studies, TTCs seek to advance their interests by engaging primarily in reputation management, coalition management and information management strategies over the long-term to propagate their over-riding discursive strategy-'we've changed, we are part of the solution'-despite clear evidence from both case studies that this is not the case. These strategies are globally coordinated and attempt primarily to reshape norms towards TTC involvement in tobacco control policy and delivery. Findings also suggest that industry denormalisation and the advent of Article 5.3 have led to the TTCs growing use of increasingly complex and opaque 'webs of influence'.

CONCLUSIONS

The tobacco control community must develop its own proactive long-term strategies which should include industry denormalisation, new ways to fund research that reduce industry control, and improved transparency measures for research and policy. These findings, including TTC adaptations to Article 5.3, also indicate the need for more structural solutions, addressing corporate power and the underlying political and economic system. These lessons can be applied to other unhealthy commodity industries.

Turning a threat into an opportunity: British American Tobacco's weakening of the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products

BACKGROUND

Previous research has outlined transnational tobacco company (TTC) efforts to undermine implementation of the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products (Protocol) and evidence of ongoing TTC complicity in the illicit tobacco trade (ITT). However, the industry's views on the Protocol and role in its development are not well understood.

METHODS

Systematic searching and analysis of leaked documents-approximately 15 000 from British American Tobacco (BAT) and 35 from Philip Morris International, triangulated via searches of online resources and interviews with five stakeholders across academia, international organisations, governments, civil society and the private sector.

FINDINGS

Evidence indicates that after privately viewing the Protocol as a significant threat (2003), BAT worked to influence its content, while publicly signalling support for it (2007-2012), and was largely satisfied with the final text. BAT successfully pushed for a non-prescriptive text which enabled further country-level TTC influence during the Protocol's implementation phase. The final text also reflected other BAT policy preferences, including preventing outright bans on duty-free sales and intermingling, and making it difficult to sanction and hold tobacco companies accountable for ongoing involvement in the ITT. TTC representatives were present during early Protocol negotiations, despite rules against this, and BAT obtained draft texts before they were public and paid at least one delegate to support its position.

CONCLUSIONS

BAT's primary interest in shaping the Protocol was to minimise its financial and legal costs for BAT while maximising potential costs to small competitors. These findings raise concern about the Protocol's ability to control the ITT, particularly given TTCs' intention to influence ongoing national implementation. An effective Protocol is vital to controlling both the ITT and ongoing tobacco industry involvement in it and, in turn, governments' ability to increase tobacco taxes and thereby save lives.

Tracking and tracing the tobacco industry: potential tobacco industry influence over the EU's system for tobacco traceability and security features

BACKGROUND

Subsequent to the transnational tobacco companies' (TTC) history of involvement in tobacco smuggling, the Illicit Trade Protocol (ITP) requires that tobacco tracking and tracing (T&T) systems be established independent of the industry. In response, TTCs developed a T&T system, originally called Codentify, promoting it via an elaborate set of front groups to create a false impression of independence. The European Union (EU) is one of the first and largest jurisdictions to operationalise T&T. We explore how industry efforts to influence T&T have evolved.

METHODS

Analysis of tobacco industry documents, policy documents, submissions to a relevant consultation and relationships between the tobacco industry and organisations proposed by it and approved by the European Commission to provide a data repository function within the EU's T&T system.

FINDINGS

17 months after TTCs sold Codentify to Inexto and Philip Morris International claimed Inexto was independent, leaked documents suggest TTCs and Inexto continued to have a financial and operational relationship. Inexto's meetings with TTCs, engagement with EU Member States and promotion of industry-favoured technical standards suggest TTCs influenced Inexto's activities, using the company to undermine EU T&T. The EU's T&T system appears to be inconsistent with the ITP due to its 'mixed' governance and seven of eight organisations approved as data repository providers having pre-existing industry business links.

CONCLUSIONS

TTC's efforts to maximise their control and minimise external scrutiny of T&T systems seriously limit attempts to address tobacco smuggling. Countries implementing T&T should be alert to such efforts and should not replicate the EU system.

Measuring the illicit cigarette market in Mexico: a cross validation of two methodologies

Objective

To compare two methods to estimate the magnitude of the illicit cigarette trade in Mexico and to contrast these results with tobacco industry figures.

Methods

We used two survey methods: a smoker survey and a discarded pack survey. Data were collected in eight major cities in Mexico between November and December 2017. A total of 2396 face-to-face interviews to adult smokers were conducted and 8204 discarded packs were collected. To determine whether cigarette packs were intended for the Mexican market, we analysed pack features required by Mexican regulations and self-reported brands of the last purchase. Standard statistical tests to compare proportions were employed. Correlates of illicit cigarette use were also analysed.

Results

The share of cigarettes not intended for the Mexican market was 8.8% based on the analysis of discarded packs and 7.6% based on the survey of smokers, that is, the difference was small and only borderline significant overall (p=0.055). Also, both results were lower than those presented by the tobacco industry (16.6%). However, differences across methods were statistically significant for various cities.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that the optimal practice for the study of illicit trade is to cross validate estimates using both the smoker survey and the littered pack survey. If resources are limited, however, our findings indicate that either method could be used because both yield similar overall results, as longs as the potential biases are considered. Also, consistent with findings from other studies, our results suggest that the tobacco industry exaggerates the scope of illicit cigarette trade.