World No-Tobacco Day

When e-cigarettes are designed to look like school supplies or taste like candy, it’s obvious that the tobacco industry is targeting young people directly.

“There is a lot of talk about Sweden becoming smoke-free, but this is a narrative that has been created by the tobacco industry,” warns Helen Stjerna, leader of the Swedish non-profit foundation, A Non-Smoking Generation. The organization has been working for 45 years to reduce the number of young people in the country who start using tobacco.

“Our laws against marketing tobacco products were really effective up until 2016, when the Swedish tobacco industry launched white snus,” she explains. “All of a sudden, they were allowed to market white snus, or snuff, as tobacco-free. They would even hand out nicotine pouches for free outside school playgrounds. They were sponsoring events, and music festivals, and social media was flooded with influencer marketing.”

“White snus is a Swedish innovation,” she says. “It is essentially flavoured nicotine. Removing the brown tobacco leaves from the new products means the industry can avoid not only the tobacco laws, but also the rules on tobacco taxation. This is key in terms of making products that young people can afford.” 

Helen goes on to describe how the so-called tobacco-free label also serves a dual purpose for the industry, as it makes the new products appear harmless. 

“Nicotine is a harmful poison that lowers your cognitive abilities, making it harder to concentrate and harder to sleep. It's likely that white snus is even more dangerous than the traditional brown snus but, since there are no studies on white snus, we don't know. Children can “click here” on social media and order as many as six free pouches, which is enough to get them addicted. So many kids get in touch with us and say, ‘I was given this free sample and now I cannot stop; I cannot do my homework without it.’”

Many studies show that a cigarette smoker who tries to switch to snus is more likely to become a dual user, rather than to quit smoking. People use snus in the many indoor and outdoor areas where the law would otherwise prevent them from smoking, Helen points out. She stresses that “rather than helping people to quit, these products are designed to facilitate nicotine addiction and encourage traditional smoking”.

Despite a recent law in 2022, which banned advertising nicotine products on television and radio in Sweden, Helen says the tobacco industry still buys influence across social media and aggressively markets white snus, particularly at girls and young women.

“They push the idea that white snus is something fresh, with candy-like flavours. It’s no longer this disgusting brown snus that runs down your teeth and stains them brown. The industry saw an opportunity here since snus was already part of our cultural tradition.”

However, while in the past it was almost exclusively older men who used brown snus in Sweden, the introduction of white snus has resulted in a wider range of people taking up the habit.

“It was originally designed to manipulate young women, but, in the last few years, we have seen a lot of boys taking it up or switching from brown snus to white snus. The tobacco industry has successfully manipulated the narrative around white snus, promoting it as safe to use or even as a healthier alternative to traditional cigarettes.”

Helen highlights how white snus use is also now spreading from Sweden to every country around the world. “These products have enormous amounts of nicotine in them, which, in the majority of cases, is produced from tobacco leaves,” she points out. “This is not smoking cessation. This is nicotine and tobacco introduction.”

To try to protect children, A Non-Smoking Generation is campaigning for tougher laws to ensure that time spent in Swedish schools is free from all products containing nicotine.

“Snus use is spreading like an epidemic in schools here because students who are 18 can go and buy it and then sell it on to their younger friends who use it during school hours,” she says. “There are no laws to prevent this and it’s a huge problem in Sweden right now.”

Helen is hoping the law will soon be changed to ban nicotine products from being used during the school day, including on school property and outside the school gates. She believes this is fundamentally necessary although it’s not a magic bullet and there is much work needed to explain to children and young people how the purpose of the law is to protect all those minors that have not yet started using white snus and other nicotine products. 

“From my point of view, I talk to many young people who say, ‘I want to stop but it's really hard because everyone uses it.’ So, it’s very important to help all these young people that want to stop using snus but can’t if all the friends use it during school time.”

“None of them ever intended to be a smoker or a snus user,” she emphasizes. “They were just going to try it for a while and then stop anytime they wanted. At least that's what they thought. It’s a shock how easy it is to get addicted and how hard it is to stop.”

So how does Helen’s organization go about convincing young people to change their habits or to avoid taking up the white snus in the first place? 

Firstly, during lectures, young people need to be able to relate to and identify with the person standing on the stage talking to them, she says. Then, they’ve found the most effective solution is to talk about sustainability issues connected to the tobacco industry. These include issues of child labour, industry processes that involve massive deforestation, and all the poison that ends up in nature.

“We explain how tobacco and nicotine products are produced. Then we add to that the waste products that are thrown away. We highlight the cigarette butts and the nicotine pouches, as well as the lithium batteries and the plastic from disposable e-cigarettes that end up polluting our waters, the air, and the ground. So, what do you want to do? Do you want to support an industry that uses child labour and destroys the environment?”

She has noticed that young people are often very angry when they are given this information. At the end of these talks, they bring up their cigarette packs and snus tins and throw them in the bin. Because, in the end, nobody wants to feel tricked.

Figures show nine out of ten adult tobacco users started as teenagers or even earlier, and this means the industry must relentlessly target children in order to maintain their customer base. Helen is quick to point out that, if we can protect our youth from falling prey to their tactics, it won’t be long before we have a tobacco-free generation.

Half of all tobacco users die prematurely!

Tobacco and nicotine industries constantly target young new users.

Stand up for a Healthy Future!

Don’t fall for tobacco industry lies!

In the African Region, an estimated 300,000 people die from tobacco use and exposure every year.

The WHO Global Report on Trends reveals that 22 countries in the African region are on track to achieve a 30% reduction in tobacco use by 2025. However, progress has been stifled by rising numbers of young tobacco smokers due to influence of the tobacco industry,

Country surveys show that children aged 13–15 years in most African countries are using tobacco and nicotine products.

Impacts of tobacco exposure on children include:

Nicotine addiction

Early cardiovascular damage

Respiratory infection, e.g., bronchitis

Reduced lung growth

The Global Media Competition is looking for compelling social media short video reels that uncover the tobacco industry's deceptive tactics and highlight effective laws protecting children from its harmful influence. We're inviting entries from those 35 years old and under to recognize a ‘for youth by youth’ approach.

Total cash prizes USD 15 000

Key Dates: 

01 May 2024 – Submission of entries

30 June 2024 – Deadline for submission(s)

August 2024 – Announcement of winners

Eligibility

The competition is open to individuals 35 years of age and below. Participants under 18 must obtain parental or guardian consent and send it with the entry submission.

For more information, requirements and eligibility click here

Theme: 'There's no room for tobacco in a Net Zero world'.

Tobacco Free Portfolios is holding a High-Level side event on the sidelines of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly, to celebrate 5 years of the Tobacco-Free Finance Pledge. This event aims to accelerate and amplify our global impact, drive progress towards a tobacco-free world and help safeguard the wellbeing of both people and the planet.

Purpose:

Celebrate 5 years of the Tobacco-Free Finance Pledge.

Welcome new Pledge Signatories.

Encourage 'tobacco-free' to be embedded into Net Zero strategies, due to tobacco's alarming planetary footprint.

You must replace tobacco because it has a huge carbon footprint. It uses a lot of water, it has real environmental problems,” Sonja insists. “If we look at the carbon footprint of the cigarette industry, we see 78% of carbon emissions occur in tobacco growing and curing, not in factories or distribution, but through pesticide use and cutting down and burning forests for fuel.”

However, replacing one monoculture with another, such as growing soybeans for feed in poultry farming, does not solve the most important question for tobacco alternatives: is it sustainable – for the environment, for the economy, for the society or community where it is grown? Is it resilient to the effects of climate change?

“Farmers in rich countries can use their land for solar panels,” Sonja points out, but she says the level of investment needed is too high for a smallholder with only a hectare of arable land. “This is why governments need to support farmers financially to diversify,” she insists, noting also that tobacco farming is labour-intensive, and people cannot innovate if they are tired and sick.

Sonja is adamant that countries which are champions of tobacco control need to support the fight in other countries. As an organization, Unfairtobacco collate articles to showcase different alternative projects underway around the globe. Their map is intended as a collection of ideas and options, rather than as a research database, she says. “I would like to see governments investing in ideas, saying ‘Okay, let’s see if this works’ and, if so, making an idea accessible to other countries where tobacco farmers need it most for their livelihood.”

“We try to get the message across here in Germany that the things we use in our lives have a footprint elsewhere in the world, and that we need to change our way of living to support a change in other countries.”

Tobacco farmers are not the enemy, but the weakest actor in the tobacco trade system, and they need support from governments and rich countries to step away from growing tobacco, Sonja continues. “The problem is that countries need to export things and tobacco generates a lot of revenue. Farmers would need to change to something which can be exported. And that is a difficult thing.”

There have been steps towards this and projects which are working well, Sonja points out, but there are many obstacles. One of them is the need for poor countries to receive export revenues to pay off national debt, and another is the interference of the tobacco industry. Then, there is the issue of sustainability.

“Tobacco can’t be eaten in an emergency. It’s not sustainable for the community where it is grown,” Sonja emphasizes. “If you grow organic foods, which are sold locally, then this could be sustainable, if people can buy the food, or if it can be sold to a school feeding programme for example, but it will not be economically sustainable for a whole country.”

In response to these challenges, and together with international partners, Unfairtobacco initiated the Cape Town Declaration on Human Rights and a Tobacco-free World, to which more than 150 organizations have signed up. Unfairtobacco also lend support to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), in which governments are asked to support alternatives to tobacco farming.

“Tobacco has implications for humans everywhere and for the environment, from the use of pesticides and child labour in tobacco growing, to the injustice of passive smoking,” explains Sonja. “We support the advocacy work of WHO on funding alternative livelihoods because that is a big problem that governments do not commit to.”

More than 90% of the world’s tobacco is grown in low- and middle-income countries, mostly by smallholder farmers who need to use unpaid family labour to make ends meet, leading to child labour. Tobacco growing also contributes to social injustices including food insecurity, environmental damage and climate change. 

This campaign encourages governments to end tobacco growing subsidies and use the savings to support farmers to switch to more sustainable crops that improve food security and nutrition.