Tactics range from the exploitation of farmers and use of child labour to threats and intimidation, and a “continent-spanning spy network”. All to pursue BAT’s own commercial goals.

Examples from across the region feature on an illustrative map, and below are links to further reading which provide a comprehensive understanding of the company’s activities in Africa.

Sabotage, Deceit and Duplicity: British American Tobacco Uncovered

Significant new reports and briefings can be found on the BAT Uncovered micro-site of TCRG’s partner organisation STOP at exposetobacco.org

These cover new allegations of bribery across Africa, and dirty tricks in South Africa.

Briefing papers on BAT’s alleged capture of state agencies, potential complicity in smuggling in South Africa and alleged connection to an attempted bribery conspiracy in Zimbabwe will be published on this site in due course.

Buying Influence and Advantage in Africa

Analysis of whistleblower documents by the Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG) at the University of Bath found a “large number of questionable payments” made by BAT over a five-year period.  This huge international corporation used these payments to influence policy and undermine competing tobacco companies, both international and local.

• Read the report summary: Buying Influence and Advantage in Africa: An Analysis of British American Tobacco’s Questionable Payments

BAT made payments impacting ten countries in East and Central Africa. They were made to politicians and civil servants, staff of competitor companies, journalists, farmers and others involved in positions of potential influence.  The use of these payments appeared to be systematized and supported by senior staff, including in BAT’s London office.

The full report details the payments and describes the serious consequences of this unethical business activity. It also suggests that governments globally should more closely examine BAT’s behaviour.

• Read the full report: “Unlawful Bribes?”: A documentary analysis showing British American Tobacco’s use of payments to secure policy and competitive advantage in Africa¹

The leaked source documents are publicly available in the UCSF Industry Documents Library Africa Collection (University of California, San Francisco).

Dirty Tricks in South Africa

In the report on British American Tobacco in South Africa, TCRG researchers explain how BAT has fought to maintain its dominance of this key market over decades, in the face of increased competition and growing illicit trade. The report describes how the company has used “any means necessary” to hold its position, including paying another company to run a “massive secret surveillance and informant network in Southern Africa on behalf of BAT”.

The report details BAT’s use of third party service providers, allegedly overseen and run by senior operatives at BAT’s London headquarters.  It also explains how BAT is “yet to face meaningful consequences for its actions either in the region or at home in the U.K.” after the U.K. Serious Fraud Office (SFO) dropped its five-year investigation in January 2021.

BAT has repeatedly denied accusations of corporate espionage, corruption and law-breaking,² but new analysis of leaked documents raises serious questions about BAT’s activities in South Africa, particularly in relation to tobacco smuggling and tax evasion.

The research by the TCRG was carried out in collaboration with BBC’s Panorama, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Organized Crime and Reporting Project.

• Read the report: British American Tobacco in South Africa: Any Means Necessary

See also:

The BBC’s Panorama documentary programme, broadcast on 13 September 2021, which “unveils new revelations about the corrupt practices deployed by one of Britain’s biggest companies.”³

• Watch ‘Dirty Secrets of the Cigarette Business’ (BBC iPlayer, UK only, registration required)
• Watch on BBC World Saturday 18 September 2021 (Africa link, switch to other regions at the bottom of the page, note times are GMT)

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• Read: Smoke Screen: BAT’s agents brokered bribe proposal⁴
• Listen: Smoke Screen: Love, bribes, lies and spies in the tobacco industry

Victoria Hollingsworth tells the true story of corrupt practices behind the scenes at British American Tobacco. Hear from the very people caught up in this world as the Bureau sinks deep into the dirty underbelly of the tobacco industry in South Africa.

BAT in Africa: A History of Double Standards

TobaccoTactics details the history of BAT’s double standards, exposing a difference between its stated goals and principles, and its activities in low and middle-income African countries.  It includes links to earlier allegations against BAT, featured in a 2015 Panorama programme and media coverage at the time.

• See British American Tobacco in Africa: A History Double Standards

This page brings the story up to date…

• See British American Tobacco in Africa: Continuing Allegations of Misbehaviour

References

The post The BAT Files: How British American Tobacco Bought Influence in Africa appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

Philip Morris International (PMI) is the largest tobacco company in the world (excluding the Chinese National Tobacco Corporation).⁵ The company is headquartered in New York in the United States (US), but also based operationally in Lausanne, Switzerland and Hong Kong. According to the Associated Press, Altria decided to separate Philip Morris USA and its international operations in order to “clear the international tobacco business from the legal and regulatory constraints facing its domestic counterpart, Philip Morris USA”.⁶

In 2018, PMI and its subsidiaries sold its products in over 180 markets, selling cigarettes, other tobacco products and newer nicotine and tobacco products. The company reported in 2019 that it held 28.4% of the global market for cigarette and heated tobacco products (HTPS) excluding the US and China.⁷ The company owned six of the top 15 international cigarette brands in 2018. Its global cigarette brands are Marlboro (the world’s bestselling international brand), Merit, Parliament, Virginian S, L&M, Philip Morris, Bond Street, Chesterfield, Lark, Muratti, Next and Red & White. The company reported owning a market share of at least 15% or over in 100 countries in 2018, although in the UK PMI held only fourth position for cigarette market share behind Imperial Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International (JTI) and British American Tobacco (BAT).⁸

According to Euromonitor International, PMI’s global share of the cigarette market (by retail volume) was under 14% in 2018, and fell to 12% in 2020 (figures rounded). ⁹

On 27 August 2019, global news outlets reported that PMI and Altria were considering a merger to reunite the brands that had split in 2007.¹⁰¹¹¹² However the merger was called off the next month, in response to news that the FDA was considering a ban on flavoured e-cigarettes.¹³¹⁴ On March 21, 2018, PMI acquired Tabacalera Costarricense, S.A. and Mediola y Compañía, S.A. for USD$95 million, which sell Derby, Marlboro and L&M cigarettes in Costa Rica.⁷

Employees or Board Members: Past and Present

Jacek Olczak was appointed the Chief Executive Officer of PMI in May 2021.¹⁵ Previously he was the company’s Chief Operating Officer. He succeeded André Calantzopoulos who was appointed Executive Chairman of the Board. The previous chairman Louis C. Camilleri, stepped down in Decemer 2020. A full list of the company’s leadership team can be accessed at PMI’s website. Other persons that currently work for, or have previously been employed with, the company:

Massimo Andolina | Chris Argent | Drago Azinovic | Emmanuel Babeau | Werner Barth | Charles Bendotti | Frank de Rooij | Frederic de Wilde | Suzanne Rich Folsom | Stacey Kennedy | Martin King | Michael Kunst | Andreas Kurali | Bin Li | Marco Mariotti | Mario Massroli | Deepak Mishra | Silke Muenster | John O’Mullane | Paul Riley | Marian Salzman | Gregoire Verdeaux | Michael Voegele | Stefano Volpetti | Jerry Whitson |  Martin J. Barrington | David Bernick | Bertrand Bonvin | Harold Brown | Patrick Brunel | Mathis Cabiallavetta | Louis C. Camilleri | Andrew Cave | Herman Cheung | Kevin Click | Marc S. Firestone | John Dudley Fishburn | Jon Huenemann | Even Hurwitz | Jennifer Li | Graham Mackay | Sergio Marchionne | Kate Marley | Kalpana Morparia | Jim Mortensen | Lucio A. Noto | Matteo Pellegrini | Robert B. Polet | Ashok Rammohan | Carlos Slim Helú | Julie Soderlund | Hermann Waldemer | Stephen M. Wolf | Miroslaw Zielinski

Affiliations

Memberships

In 2019, PMI declared membership of the following organisations on the European Transparency Register:¹⁶

The American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union | American European Community Association (AECA) | American Chamber of Commerce of Lithuania | Ass. Industrial Portuguesa (AIP) | Business Europe | Centromarca | CEOE | Czech Association Branded Goods | Czech Foodstuff Chamber | Economiesuisse | Estonian Chamber of Commerce | European Communities Trademark Association (ECTA) | European Policy Centre (EPC) | Kangaroo Group | Latvian Chamber of Commerce | Latvian Traders Association | Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists | MARQUES | Spanish Tobacco Roundtable | VBO-FBE

PMI had previously listed memberships of: International Trademark Association (INTA) | The Trans-Atlantic Business Council (TABC) | | European Risk Forum | European Smokeless Tobacco Council (ESTOC) | British Chamber of Commerce | Public Affairs Council | APRAM | LES France | AmCham Germany | Bund fur Lebensmittelrecht & Lebensmittelkunde | Europaischer Wirtschaftssenat (EWS) | Wirtschaftsbeirat der Union e.V. | American Chamber of Commerce of Estonia | American Lithuanian Business Council | Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists | Investors’ Forum | AmCham Spain | Unindustria (Confindustria) | Consumer Packaging Alliance | British Brands Group | Foodstuff Chamber The company is also a donor to the Eliminating Child Labour in Tobacco Growing Foundation (ECLT), alongside BAT, Imperial Brands, JTI and Swedish Match, among others.¹⁷

In May 2015, ECLT and the International Labour Organization (ILO) entered into an agreement to develop global guidance on occupational health and safety with regards to child labour in the tobacco industry.¹⁸ PMI was a member of the Confederation of European Community Cigarette Manufacturers (CECCM), but left in 2006 following a dispute with other members.¹⁹

Consultancies

PMI has worked with numerous Public Relations (PR) and law consultancies:

• In 2020 and 2021 PMI released white papers and held events on public trust in science in partnership with the Industry Transformation Coalition.
• In January 2020, PMI released a white paper entitled “Unsmoke Your Mind: Pragmatic Answers to Tough Questions for a Smoke-Free Future”. The company enlisted the consulting firm Povaddo, which works across public affairs, strategy and research,²⁰ to conduct an opinion-based survey of smokers across 14 countries.²¹ The report was heavily criticised in The Lancet medical journal (see below)²² who pointed out that its findings were based on a “self-funded online survey”.²² In July 2020, PMI published another white paper called “In Support of the Primacy of Science”, which was also based on online surveys conducted by Povaddo, on the public’s views on science.²³²⁴ In March 2021 PMI released the results of a third online survey, conducted by Povaddo in 20 countries, on public attitudes to newer nicotine and tobacco products and collaboration between governments and tobacco companies.²⁵ Povaddo has conducted previous research for PMI.²⁶
• In December 2019, researchers and academic institutions received invitations from the consulting firm, Handshake, to commission research on behalf of PMI on how companies navigate corporate transformation.²⁷
• In 2016, Philip Morris UK was a client of London-based PR and communications company Instinctif Partners.
• That same year, media also linked Brussels-based PR company Pantarhei Advisors to Philip Morris.
• In 2014, UK-based Media Intelligence Partners was PMI’s media contact during Sir Cyril Chantler’s plain packaging review.
• In 2014, German PR company Communications & Network Consulting AG (CNC) listed Philip Morris as a client on the EU Transparency Register.
• In that same year, Luxembourg-based Felula SA, a one-person consultancy run by Serge Estgen, listed PMI as its client on the EU Transparency Register.
• In 2013, Edinburgh-based Halogen Communications supported PMI’s opposition to Scotland’s plans to introduce Plain Packaging.
• In 2012 and 2013, PMI worked with London-based PR and media company Pepper Public Affairs on PMI’s Anti-Plain Packaging Media Campaign.
• In 2012, the UK branch of Crosby Textor Group, helped PMI oppose Plain packaging in the UK.
• Law firm Clifford Chance has a history of lobbying for PMI in the UK and European Union (EU). In 2009, the firm submitted anonymous Freedom of Information requests to a UK university on behalf of the tobacco company, and in 2011 and 2012 Clifford Chance’s Michel Petite lobbied on the EU Tobacco Products Directive.
• From 2009 to 2011 PR company Gardant Communications worked for Philip Morris UK. In 2009, the PR company supported Philip Morris’ PR Campaign Against the Display Ban and was involved in Philip Morris’ Regulatory Litigation Action Plan Against the Display Ban.
• APCO Associates‘ collaboration with PMI goes back to the 1990s when it helped the company set up the European Science and Environment Forum. More recently, it was involved in Philip Morris’ PR Campaign Against the Display Ban.
• London-based PR company INHouse Communications also played a part in Philip Morris’ PR Campaign Against the Display Ban.
• Ogilvy Group‘s collaboration with Philip Morris goes back to the 1950s when it ran one of its advertising campaigns.
• José María Aznar, the former Spanish Prime Minister (see below)

Controversial Marketing Strategies

Since its controversial “Be Marlboro: Targeting the World’s Biggest Brand at Youth” campaign in 2014, PMI have been accused on multiple occasions of targeting their products at young people. On its website, PMI says that it is “committed to doing our part to help prevent children from smoking or using nicotine products”. ²⁸ It further states that its “marketing complies with all applicable laws and regulations, and we have robust internal policies and procedures in place so that all our marketing and advertising activities are directed only toward adult smokers”.²⁸ Despite these assurances, PMI has been accused of, and fined for, running marketing campaigns that target young people. For more information see Be Marlboro: Targeting the World’s Biggest Brand at Youth. PMI has increasingly used social media to market its newer products, including e-cigarettes (also known as electronic nicotine delivery systems, or ENDS) and heated tobacco products.

• For more information on PMI’s newer, including IQOS, visit Newer Nicotine and Tobacco Products: Philip Morris International and Heated Tobacco Products: Philip Morris International.

In December 2023 The Times newspaper highlighted PMI’s role in third party campaigns promoting e-cigarettes in the UK.²⁹ For more information visit the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World page.

Complicity in Tobacco Smuggling

PMI portrays itself publicly as a victim of illicit tobacco trade, with the company reporting that tobacco smuggling results in “considerable financial losses” and “damage” to manufacturers’ brands.³⁰ To help tackle illicit trade, PMI launched a funding initiative called PMI IMPACT in 2016, worth US$100m and aimed at bringing together “organisations that fight illegal trade and related crimes, enabling them to implement solutions”.³¹³² In its first call for proposals in 2016, PMI asked for “projects that have an impact on illegal trade and related crimes in the European Union…”³³ The second call, made in 2017, expanded the areas of focus to include the Middle East, North Africa, South and Central America and South and Southeast Asia.³⁴ For more information, visit our page on PMI IMPACT. In contrast to the company’s public persona of being part of the smuggling solution, evidence shows that the company was, in fact, part of the problem. In 2000, the European Commission (backed by a majority of EU member states) started court proceedings in the US Courts against PMI and other tobacco companies for its complicity in tobacco smuggling. The Commission claimed that the tobacco companies “boosted their profits in the past by deliberately oversupplying some countries so that their product could be smuggled into the EU”, costing the EU millions of euros in lost tax and customs revenue.³⁵³⁶ PMI and the Commission settled their dispute in 2004, when the company agreed to pay the Commission £675m to fund anti-smuggling activities.³⁷ The two Parties signed an Anti-Counterfeit and Anti-Contraband Cooperation Agreement,³⁸ referred to by the company as Project Star. As part of this agreement, PMI commissioned KPMG to measure annually the size of the legal, contraband and counterfeit markets for tobacco products in each EU Member States. Project Star’s methodology and data have been strongly criticised for lack of transparency, overestimating illicit cigarette levels in some European countries, and serving PMI’s interests over those of the EU and its member states.³⁹

Tactics to Subvert Tobacco Control Campaigns and Policies

PMI has strongly opposed tobacco control legislation and regulations across the world, including plain packaging in Australia and the UK, the EU Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), and tobacco control decrees in Uruguay. The company has used a variety of strategies and tactics to influence tobacco control policies and subvert existing regulations.

Funding Pro-Tobacco Research and Discrediting Independent Evidence

In response to plain packaging proposals in the UK, PMI funded research, expert opinion and public relations activities which supported its position. One of the people that PMI funded for this purpose was Will O’Reilly, a former Detective Chief Inspector with the London Metropolitan Police. O’Reilly was appointed as a PMI consultant in 2011,⁴⁰ conducting undercover test purchases of illicit tobacco and publicising his findings in UK regional press.⁴¹ One of PMI’s arguments to oppose plain packaging was that the public health measure would lead to an increase in illicit tobacco, including counterfeited plain packs. For background on, and a critique of, this argument, go to Countering Industry Arguments Against Plain Packaging: It will Lead to Increased Smuggling. O’Reilly’s test purchases appear to have enabled PMI to secure significant press coverage of its data on illicit tobacco.⁴² In March 2019, Euromonitor International, a market research organisation, received funding through two PMI initiatives: the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World and PMI IMPACT.⁴³⁴⁴⁴⁵ Examples of other organisations and individuals that have received funding from PMI to produce research or expert opinions or critiques of independent evidence, in order to oppose tobacco control legislation are: Deloitte | KPMG | Transcrime | Roy Morgan Research | Ashok Kaul | Michael Wolf | Populus | Centre for Economics and Business Research⁴⁶⁴⁷ | Compass Lexecon⁴⁸ | Rupert Darwall⁴⁹ | James Heckman⁵⁰ | Lord Hoffman⁵¹ | Alfred Kuss⁵² | Lalive ⁵³ | LECG⁵⁴⁵⁵⁵⁶ | London Economics | Povaddo²⁶| SKIM Consumer Research⁵⁷

• To see a list of all organisations funded through PMI’s Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW), visit our pages on the FSFW’s Centres of Excellence and grantees.
• For more information on the tobacco industry’s use of research to undermine legitimate independent evidence see: Plain Packaging in the UK: Tobacco Industry Funded Research, Expert Opinion and Public Relations.

Using Freedom of Information Requests to Acquire Public Health Research Data

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests are one strategy that the tobacco industry uses to undermine tobacco control legislation, often covertly using third parties.⁵⁸ In 2009, and again in 2011, PMI sent Freedom of Information requests to Stirling University (UK) requesting access to a wide range of data from its research on teenage smoking. PMI alleged that it wanted “to understand more about the research project conducted by the University of Stirling on plain packaging for cigarettes”.⁵⁹ The FOI requests were eventually dropped. For more information on these FOI requests, and an explanation on how these requests impacted the University of Stirling, go to our page FOI: Stirling University.

Fabricating Support through Front Groups

PMI has used front groups to oppose tobacco control measures. Front Groups are organisations that purport to serve a public interest, while actually serving the interests of another party (in this case the tobacco industry), and often obscuring the connection between them. In Australia, leaked private documents revealed that the supposed anti-plain packaging retailer grass roots movement, the Alliance of Australian Retailers was set up by tobacco companies and that the Director of Corporate Affairs Philip Morris Australia, Chris Argent, played a critical role in its day-to-day operations.⁶⁰⁶¹⁶²

• For more information on this front group, and Philip Morris Australia’s involvement, visit the Alliance of Australian Retailers page.
• For more information on front groups funded and/or organised by PMI and other tobacco companies, see the list on the Expose Tobacco website.

Lobbying of Decision Makers

Article 5.3 of the The World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) explicitly aims to reduce industry influence in public health policymaking by obliging parties to protect their health policies from tobacco industry interests and interference.⁶³ Yet tobacco industry representatives, and third-parties regularly attempt to influence public health policymaking in the industry’s favour. This section details some of these incidents involving PMI and the response of the governments and the global health community.

EU

PMI reported that it spent between €1,250,000 and €1,499,999 in 2019 lobbying EU institutions, employing only 2 fulltime equivalent staff in its Brussels office.¹⁶ If this data is correct, it suggests that PMI relied heavily on external lobbying firms. A 2013 leaked internal PMI document revealed that the company had 161 lobbyists working to undermine the revision of the EU Tobacco Products Directive (TPD).⁶⁴ The objective of PMI’s campaign was to either “push” (i.e. amend) or “delay” the TPD proposal, and “block” any so-called “extreme policy options” like the proposed point of sales display ban and plain packaging.⁶⁵

• For more information on PMI’s campaign to undermine the TPD, go to EU Tobacco Products Directive Revision and PMI Mobilised Support from Retailers.

UK

The leaked internal PMI documents from 2013 also revealed the extent of a multi-faceted campaign against Plain Packaging in the UK, including a detailed media campaign using dozens of third parties (both individuals and organisations) to promote its arguments against the policy. The documents also included a detailed political analysis of potential routes of influence for the tobacco company (Image 1).⁴⁰

One third party appointed in November 2011 to help PMI oppose the plain packaging proposal was the Crosby Textor Group. This appointment led to a conflict of interest scandal, given that Lynton Crosby co-Director of the Crosby Textor Group, was also the political election strategist for the UK’s Conservative Party, which was in power in the UK. David Cameron, then Prime Minister, insisted that Crosby never lobbied him about plain packaging. ⁶⁶⁶⁷ Despite a lack of evidence that Crosby lobbied the Prime Minister and Health Minister on plain packaging, documents released under FOI legislation, obtained by the University of Bath Tobacco Control Research Group, show that Crosby lobbied the UK Government on plain packaging via Lord Marland, the then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Intellectual Property, to oppose plain packaging. For more information on this lobbying scandal, go to Lynton Crosby’s page.

• For more detail on PMI’s attempts to undermine plain packaging proposals in the UK, visit: PMI Mobilised Support from Retailers | PMI’s Anti-Plain Packaging Lobbying Campaign | PMI’s Anti-Plain Packaging Media Campaign | PMI’s “Illicit Trade” Anti-Plain Packaging Campaign
• For information on the tobacco industry’s tactics to undermine this tobacco control measures, visit our pages on: Plain Packaging in the UK: Tobacco Company Opposition | Plain Packaging in the UK: Tobacco Industry Funded Research, Expert Opinion and Public Relations | Plain Packaging in the UK: Tobacco Industry Built Alliances | Plain Packaging in the UK: Tobacco Industry Funded Third Party Campaigns
• PMI also opposed the tobacco product display ban gradually introduced in the UK from 2012. More information on PMI’s tactics to stop this measure, see: Philip Morris’ PR Campaign Against the Display Ban

Australia

Australia has one of the least hospitable regulatory environments for the tobacco industry, having passed regulations banning advertising since 1976, a point of sale ban in 2011, and a plain packaging law in 2012. It also has regulation in place to prevent the sale of nicotine products, including e-cigarettes and HTPs.⁶⁸

The industry has not, however, given up on attempting to market its products and lobby decision makers across the country. In a 2019 article, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Tammy Chan, Managing Director of PMI Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific wrote letters to health organisations urging them to enter into a “dialogue” on PMI’s “smoke-free” vision in the lead up to a parliamentary select committee meeting on the impact of e-cigarettes on “personal choice”.⁶⁹

In March 2019, PMI was accused of “subliminal advertising” in its sponsorship of the Ferrari Formula One team during the Australian Gran Prix in Melbourne. PMI has been accused of attempting to evade advertising bans by sponsoring motorsports teams.

• For more information see Motorsport Sponsorship

Latin America

José María Aznar, the former Prime Minister of Spain, has been widely reported by media outlets as having taken up a position as a lobbyist for PMI in Latin America.^70717273

• For more information on his meetings with public officials in Chile and Peru, as well as his history of association with the tobacco industry while in office, see our page on José María Aznar.

Intimidating Governments with Litigation or Threat of Litigation

PMI has legally challenged tobacco control regulations across the globe, including:

• Comprehensive No Smoking Ordinance (2010 and 2016) and Tobacco-Free Generation Ordinance (2016) in Balanga, Philippines. A front group for the world’s biggest tobacco companies, including PMI, called the Philippine Tobacco institute (PTI) sued the city of Balanga in August 2017 over the Comprehensive No Smoking Ordinance, which it argued was “arbitrary and oppressive” and cost PMI USD$420,000 a month in lost sales. In July 2018, regional courts ruled in PTI’s favour, noting that although the city’s tobacco control efforts were “commendable”, they were also unconstitutional. PTI launched another lawsuit in May 2018 to challenge the constitutionality of the city’s Tobacco-Free Generation Ordinance.⁶⁹
• The Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Second Amendment Rules, 2018 text and pictorial health warnings law in India. PMI affiliate Godfrey Phillips India sought a stay of implementation of new legislation requiring health warnings to increase to cover 85% of the surface of cigarette packaging, from the High Court of Karnataka in Bangalore, India. The Court rejected the request for stay in August 2018. The legality of the Rules themselves was at the time pending in the Supreme Court.⁷⁵
• The May 20, 2016 Decree plain packaging law in France. In December 2016, the Conseil d’Etat (the Council of State, the highest administrative jurisdiction in France) dismissed a six-part legal challenge jointly brought against the plain packaging law by JTI, Philip Morris France, BAT France, a tobacco paper manufacturer and The National Confederation of Tobacco Retailers of France (Confédération Nationale des Buralistes de France).⁷⁶
• In 2013, the mayor of Popayán, a city in southwestern Colombia, issued a decree prohibiting tobacco sales within 500 metres of schools, libraries and health institutions. Following heavy lobbying from Coltabaco, a Philip Morris affiliate, the radius was decreased to 200 metres. Coltabaco sued Popayán in March 2015, arguing that a mayoral decree was insufficient to effect legitimate regulation. Coltabaco won its lawsuit in September 2015.⁷⁷
• The Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015 (UK). Following the passage of the legislation in March 2015, PMI and others launched a legal action, which it lost in May 2016 (the day before the legislation was due to come into force).⁷⁸⁷⁹
• The 2014 EU Tobacco Products Directive (TPD). PMI and BAT attempted to invalidate the TPD as a whole, or various provisions within it, but this legal challenge was dismissed in the European Court of Justice in May 2016.⁸⁰ More details can be found on the page TPD: Legal Challenges.
• The Ministry of Public Health Notice of Rules, Procedures, and Conditions for the Display of Images, Warning Statements, and Contact Channels for Smoking Cessation on Cigarette Labels of 2013 (Thailand). In July 2013, Philip Morris Thailand and Japan Tobacco International (JTI) Thailand requested a temporary injunction against an increase of picture and text health warnings from 55 to 85 percent of the front and back of cigarette warnings. Though their request was initially granted in August 2013 in the Central Administrative Court of Thailand, the injunction was reversed in May 2014 by the Supreme Administrative Court following appeal by the government. PMI and JTI ultimately withdrew their legal challenge.⁸¹
• Following heavy criticism of its “Be Marboro” campaign worldwide (see below), Germany banned PMI from displaying “Be Marlboro” advertising in the country. A German court overturned the ban in 2015, stating that the wording of the advertisements did not explicitly target younger than legal age smokers.⁸²
• National Systems of Health Oversight RDC No. 14/2012 Brazil. The Brazil Health Regulatory Agency’s (ANVISA) resolution No. 14 banned tobacco additives and flavours. The National Confederation of Industry (Confederação Nacional da Indústria) challenged the ban as an unconstitutional use of regulatory power. In February 2018, the highest court in Brazil, the Supreme Federal Tribunal, upheld the 2012 ban and reaffirmed the right of ANVISA to regulate tobacco products.⁸³
• The Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011 (Australia). PMI fiercely opposed the legislation, fearing that it might set a global precedent. The company fought this legislation unsuccessfully on three fronts:
  • World Trade Organization (WTO) challenge: In 2014, PMI supported a request by the Dominican Republic government before the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, alleging that Australia’s plain packaging laws breach the WTO’s General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).⁸⁴ Similar requests were submitted by Ukraine, Cuba, Indonesia and Honduras, and furthermore, a record number of more than 40 WTO members joined the dispute as third parties.⁸⁵
  • Constitutional challenge: In March 2012, PMI supported a claim made by British American Tobacco (BAT) in December 2011 before the Australian High Court that plain packaging was in breach of the Australian constitution.⁸⁶ On 15 August 2012, the Hight Court ruled that plain packaging was not in breach with the Australian constitution as there had been no acquisition of property as alleged by the tobacco companies.⁸⁵
  • Bilateral Investment challenge: In 2011, PMI started legal proceedings against the Australian government for allegedly violating the terms of The Australia – Hong Kong Bilateral Investment Treaty.⁸⁷ In December 2015, The Permanent Court of Arbitration issued a unanimous decision that it had no jurisdiction to hear the claim. For more information on all three claims go to Australia: Challenging Legislation.
• Executive Decree No. 611 passed on 3 June 2010 in Panamá. Philip Morris Panamá joined onto a claim of unconstitutionality brought by British American Tobacco (BAT) against a ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship (TAPS) and tobacco product display at the point of sale. BAT Panama claimed the ban violated freedom of expression and property rights, among others. The Supreme Court ruled in May 2014 against BAT, noting that, among other things, freedom of expression could be restricted in order to protect public health.⁸⁸
• 2010 Amendment to the 1973 Act relating to the Prevention of the Harmful Effects of Tobacco (the Tobacco Control Act) in Norway. The Norwegian display ban on tobacco products came into effect on 1 January 2010 after an amendment was passed by the government in favour of the prohibition of visible tobacco products, smoking accessories and vending machines of tobacco products. PMI unsuccessfully challenged the ban as imposing a barrier to trade; the Oslo District court ruled in favour of the display ban in September 2012.⁸⁹
• Ordinance 514, dated 18 August 2008, and Decree 287/009 dated 15 June 2009 (Uruguay). PMI unsuccessfully challenged the Uruguayan Tobacco Control Act which included a mandate for 80% health warnings on tobacco packets. The case was decided in favour of public health in 2017.⁹⁰ PMI brought its claim under the Switzerland-Uruguay Bilateral Investment Treaty at the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes. The tribunal ruled in favour of Uruguay in July 2016.⁹¹

Newer Nicotine and Tobacco Products

As the harms from conventional products have become better understood, and tobacco control measures have been put in place, the cigarette market – from which tobacco companies make most of their profits – has started to shrink. To secure the industry’s longer-term future, transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) have invested in, developed and marketed various newer nicotine and tobacco products.⁹²  

In January 2017, PMI issued a press release which stated that the company intended to move its business away from conventional tobacco products entirely (see Image 2).⁹³ The company’s much publicised vision for a “smoke-free” future is one in which PMI plays a central role in “[providing] better alternatives to smoking for those who don’t quit”.⁷ Integral to this vision was the release of IQOS in 2014. By 2016, PMI was the market leader in heated tobacco products (HTPs), accounting for over 99% of the global HTP market.⁷⁴ By 2018, PMI’s share of the global HTP market had fallen to around 80%.⁷⁴⁹⁴ PMI reported that by the end of 2019, IQOS was available in 52 markets, including the United States (US), and a number of lower income countries.⁹⁵

• For more information on IQOS and PMI’s newer products see Newer Nicotine and Tobacco Products: Philip Morris International and Heated Tobacco Products: Philip Morris International.
• See also PMI’s Promotion of IQOS Using the FDA’s 2020 Modified Risk Tobacco Product (MRTP) Order

In April 2019, a life insurance company Reviti was launched. Registered in the UK at Companies House, Reviti is a wholly owned subsidiary of PMI.⁹⁶⁹⁷ The London-based company specialises in offering policies to smokers, with discounts for those who reduce or switch to PMI’s newer products.⁹⁸

In May 2022, PMI made an offer of US$16 billion deal to acquire Swedish Match, a manufacturer of snus and nicotine pouches, as well as chewing tobacco, snuff and cigars.⁹⁹¹⁰⁰ Swedish Match had planned to sell its cigar business but these plans were put on hold in March 2022.¹⁰¹ PMI CEO Jacek Olczak said of the deal: “An important aspect of this proposed combination is the opportunity in the U.S., which is the world’s largest market for smoke-free products.”¹⁰²PMI is also hoping to significantly increase its market share of newer nicotine products in Europe and Asia.¹⁰³ 

As of 28 November 2022, PMI had acquired over 90% of Swedish Match, gaining control of the company and enabling it to buy the remaining shares and take Swedish Match off the stock market.¹⁰⁴¹⁰⁵

• For details see Swedish Match

Tobacco companies, including PMI, also invest in therapeutic products, such as nicotine lozenges, gum and inhalers. More information can be found on this page: Tobacco Company Investments in Pharmaceutical & NRT Products

“Smoke-Free” Campaigns

PMI has run various “smoke-free” campaigns promoting its newer products, including “Hold My Light” (UK); “Unsmoke Your World” (global); “It’s Time” (targeting policy makers); and “Futuro sin Humo” (in Mexico).

• For details see: Philip Morris International: “Smoke-Free” campaigns

Participation in Global Platforms to Rehabilitate Image

PMI has attempted to gain access to many high-level international events as a means of “rehabilitating its image and securing influence over global institutions and policy elites”. Since January 2019, PMI presence has been documented at:⁷⁴

January 2019

• World Economic Forum (WEF; Davos, Switzerland): PMI launched its first “white paper” to coincide with WEF. Though it was not an invited guest, PMI held a side-event co-hosted by the Wall Street Journal, and sponsored the Davos Playbook, Politico’s daily newsletter distributed to attendees.

June 2019

• (Group of 20) G20 Summit (Osaka, Japan): PMI took out a two-page advertisement in The Japan Times promoting its corporate transformation and reiterating the need for dialogue between decision-makers and industry.
• Cannes Lions International Film Festival of Creativity (Cannes, France): PMI attended Cannes to talk about newer tobacco products and potentially recruit celebrity activists to its cause.¹⁰⁶ In addition, PMI had its own schedule of events, hosted by actress Rose McGowan and rapper Wycliff Jean. It also spoke in the festival’s Good Track stream alongside organisations including Greenpeace and UN Women. The decision to include PMI on the Good Track was heavily criticised in the light of “the ethics of proclaiming a smoke-free philosophy while continuing to sell billions of cigarettes a year”.¹⁰⁷¹⁰⁸

October 2019

• United Nations General Assembly (UNGA; New York City, USA): Though barred from participating directly in the UNGA, PMI hosted a parallel event at Concordia, a high-level event to foster partnerships between businesses, governments and UN agencies. In attendance were officials from the UN’s World Food Program, the UN Foundation and the World Bank as well as PMI’s Vice President of Global Partnerships and Cooperation, who spoke at the event. Bob Eccles, a paid PMI advisor, spoke at the UNGA during a side event on Exclusion and Engagement in Sustainable Investing.

TobaccoTactics Resources

• PMI Mobilised Support from Retailers
• PMI’s Anti-Plain Packaging Lobbying Campaign
• PMI’s Anti-PP Media Campaign
• PMI’s “Illicit Trade” Anti-Plain Packaging Campaign
• PMI IMPACT
• Philip Morris vs the Government of Uruguay
• Philip Morris’ PR Campaign Against the Display Ban
• Philip Morris’ Regulatory Litigation Action Plan Against the Display Ban
• Philip Morris’ Marlboro Brand Architecture
• Codentify
• Motorsport Sponsorship
• Digital Coding & Tracking Association (DCTA)
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World: How it Frames Itself for a detailed analysis of the ways in which the Foundation portrays itself and those who oppose the Foundation, plus the counter evidence to these portrayals
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World People
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World Grantees
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World Centres of Excellence
• Newer Nicotine and Tobacco Products: Philip Morris International
• Heated Tobacco Products: Philip Morris International

Relevant Links

• Read the STOP report: Addiction At Any Cost: The Truth About Philip Morris International
• Philip Morris International company website
• Cancer Council Australia’s Critiques of KPMG Australia illicit tobacco trade reports
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World website
• PMI Impact website

TCRG Research

• The Philip Morris-funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World: tax return sheds light on funding activities, T. Legg, S. Peeters, P. Chamberlain, A. Gilmore, The Lancet, 2019, 393(10190):2487-2488
• The revision of the 2014 European tobacco products directive: an analysis of the tobacco industry’s attempts to ‘break the health silo’, S. Peeters, H. Costa, D Stuckler, M. McKee, A. Gilmore, Tobacco Control, 2016, 25(1):108-117
• ‘It will harm business and increase illicit trade’: an evaluation of the relevance, quality and transparency of evidence submitted by transnational tobacco companies to the UK consultation on standardised packaging 2012, K. Evans-Reeves, J. Hatchard, A. Gilmore, Tobacco Control, 2015, 24(e2):e168-e177
• Illicit trade, tobacco industry-funded studies and policy influence in the EU and UK, G, Fooks, S. Peeters, K. Evans-Reeves, Tobacco Control, 2014, 23(1):81-83
• Transnational tobacco company interests in smokeless tobacco in Europe: Analysis of internal industry documents and contemporary industry materials, S. Peeters, A. Gilmore, PLoS Medicine, 2013, 10(9):1001506
• Towards a greater understanding of the illicit tobacco trade in Europe: a review of the PMI funded ‘Project Star’ report, A. Gilmore, A. Rowell, S. Gallus, A. Lugo, L. Joossens, M. Sims, 2013, Tobacco Control, doi:10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2013-051240

For a comprehensive list of all TCRG publications, including research that evaluates the impact of public health policy, go to the Bath TCRG’s list of publications.

References

The post Philip Morris International appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

This page sets out the context for that objective, how the Foundation has attempted to achieve it and sets out counter-arguments to critique its approach. In summary, the Foundation has attempted to frame itself as:

• A legitimate creator of independent research
• A supporter of FCTC (including Article 5.3)
• A supporter of social justice issues (empathetic to the smoker, empathetic to farmers and LMICs)
• A supporter of measured regulation (i.e. harm reduction approach to tobacco regulation)

The Foundation has framed some of the public health community and tobacco control measures in these ways:

• Negative characterisation of the public health community
• Negative characterisation of public health measures such as taxation 

PMI’s Corporate Plan & Emergence of the Foundation for Smoke-Free World

Although on its website PMI talks about a smoke-free future,¹¹⁰ PMI’s claims of commitment to harm reduction appear to be fundamentally undermined by its own documents, including its leaked 10 year Corporate Affairs Plan¹¹¹ written in 2014 (and published by Reuters in 2018).¹¹² These documents give an insight into PMI’s long-term plans before the launch of the Foundation in 2017.

These internal documents revealed that as recently as 2014, PMI was maintaining its attempts to “maximise commercial opportunities and grow market share” of combustible cigarettes.¹¹¹ In 2018, academics highlighted that “PMI has made no concessions to stop promoting combustible cigarettes, and continues its activities opposing FCTC policy implementation”.¹¹³ This concurrent activity by PMI fuels the assessment of PMI’s funding of the FSFW as a conflict of interest.

The leaked documents also reveal PMI was concerned about denormalisation (of both itself and of the tobacco industry more generally) and wanted to be seen as “part of the solution” to the harm caused by smoking, to be a “trusted and indispensable partner” and “to establish the legitimacy of tobacco companies to be part of the regulatory debate on RRPs”.¹¹¹ The company outlined its plans to “find allies that cannot be ignored”,¹¹⁴ and “amplify voices of ‘harm reduction’ supporters vs ‘prohibitionists’”.¹¹¹ PMI stated there was a need to use consultants as “door-openers”, and “strategists”, and to create “third party coalition building” to mobilise “an alliance of credible messengers”.¹¹⁴

Given that PMI has since pledged US$1 billion to fund the work of the FSFW in 2017,¹¹⁵ the Foundation may well be interpreted as the embodiment of these very plans.

Indeed, academic critiques of PMI’s involvement in tobacco harm reduction strategies have been made in 2018. Some have argued that PMI is using harm reduction arguments as a way to renormalise both itself and the wider industry, “using strategies that they have used for decades to fracture tobacco control and promote tobacco ‘harm reduction’ in an attempt to renormalize tobacco use” and “undermine government’s tobacco regulatory efforts”.¹¹⁶ It has been suggested that the Foundation is “an apparent element of PMI’s plan to expand the market for its HTP tobacco products as well as rehabilitate the company’s reputation”.¹¹⁶ Others have suggested that “the FSFW may function operationally to advance and amplify tobacco industry messaging and potentially exacerbate conflicts within public health”, and as a “ploy to boost PMI’s corporate image and possibly produce misleading science, while PMI continues to attack effective tobacco control policies and profit from cigarette sales”.¹¹³

In yet another attempt to boost its own image, the Foundation claimed an affiliation with the goals of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) and the Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG) in the Frequently-Asked Questions section of its website on its Tobacco Transformation Index. It stated that as FSFW:¹¹⁷

“shares common goals with organizations such as Tobacco Tactics and the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance, vocal critics of the Foundation and its work, we welcome opening a constructive dialogue with their leadership toward achieving the common goal – improving global health by ending smoking in this generation”.

In January 2020, SEATCA and TCRG wrote an open letter to Derek Yach, Director of the Foundation, to request that this statement be removed. In their letter, Ulysses Dorotheo, SEATCA Executive Director, and Professor Anna Gilmore of the TCRG denounced this “wrongful association with and by FSFW” and requested that the Foundation “cease and desist” from associating with SEATCA and Tobacco Tactics and remove both organisations’ names from its website.¹¹⁸ You can read the full letter here.

To read a more detailed article on PMI’s 10 year plan and the subsequent establishment of the FSFW, see: Big Tobacco is funding the anti-smoking lobby but leaked documents reveal the real reason why. 

Framing Itself, Its Science and those Who Oppose It

The following section provide examples of the above and presents some counter evidence which questions the Foundation’s characterisations of itself and others. This analysis does not represent an exhaustive list of the arguments the Foundation has made, nor an exhaustive list of counter-arguments.

Certificate of Incorporation

The Foundation’s purpose is to support “research and projects regarding alternatives to cigarettes and other combustible products and how best to achieve a smoke-free world and advance the field of tobacco harm reduction”.¹¹⁹ 

McCabe Centre critique: This leaves no capacity for the Foundation to focus on other tobacco control measures such as “prevention of uptake or cessation of use without replacement by other products”.¹²⁰

PMI Pledge Agreement with the Foundation

PMI are only obliged to continue to fund the Foundation if it has not “rescinded, amended or modified the Foundation’s Purpose” and has worked “exclusively in accordance with the Foundation’s purpose”.¹²¹

McCabe Centre critique: “In other words, the cost of change – for example to focus on ending smoking other than through alternative products/harm reduction…would be the US960 million” pledged to the Foundation by PMI (or at least its outstanding balance). The pledged amount is therefore tied to the Foundation exclusively working on PMI-specified research priorities.¹²⁰

Bylaws

“The Certificate of Incorporation and these Bylaws may be amended or repealed and new Certificate of Incorporation or Bylaws may be adopted upon the affirmative vote of two-thirds (⅔) of the Directors then serving entitled to vote”.¹²²

McCabe Centre critique: It is possible for the Foundation to change its research priorities (at the cost of the significant funding pledged from PMI), but only if two-thirds of the Board of Directors backed a decision to do so. This board “will likely be a group inherently unrepresentative of the fields of tobacco control/public health,* as it is hard to imagine that it will include many (or any) individuals unsympathetic to the arrangement Yach has struck with Philip Morris”.¹²⁰ A majority vote to change the Foundation’s research priorities is therefore unlikely.

* On 1 February 2018 the Foundation announced its Board of Directors, which, at that time, included individuals (Lisa Gable, Michael Sagner, and Zoe Feldman) promoting collaboration with industry.¹²³

The Foundation frames itself as…

1. A legitimate creator of independent research

Claim: The Foundation repeatedly asserts that it acts independently from the tobacco industry, for example:

• In October 2017, Derek Yach, the President of the Foundation assured readers that there were “stringent safeguards in place to assure the tobacco industry has zero influence over the Foundation’s agenda or research;”¹²⁴
• Yach went on to state that “The Foundation is an independent legal entity separate and distinct from the tobacco industry, with independent governance, a peer-reviewed research agenda and strict protections against conflict of interest;” ¹²⁵ 

Counter evidence: A McCabe Centre analysis of the Foundation’s constitutive documents outlined here has highlighted several ways in which it appears that PMI would be able to influence the Foundation’s research agenda and practice.¹²⁰

Claim: The Foundation used Cohen et al.’s criteria which stipulate the circumstances under which industry-funded models of research may be appropriate,¹²⁶ stating that “The Foundation has put those principles and criteria into practice”¹²⁷¹²⁸

Counter evidence: However, Cohen et al. themselves have since been clear that the Foundation does not meet the criteria as set out in their paper, “the claim…the Foundation addresses their eight criteria…is incorrect in several instances”, concluding that “due to lack of independence, the potential for conflicts of interest, and clear public relations gains, the Foundation does not represent a tobacco industry-supported funding model that should be acceptable to the research community” ¹²⁹

The Foundation’s very first research output, the “State of Smoking” study was conducted by a public relations firm, Kantar, which has been criticised for its history of working with the tobacco industry whilst simultaneous working for governments and health charities. ¹³⁰

Claim: The Foundation attempted to establish itself as a legitimate tobacco control organisation, through its statement in support of Bloomberg’s Philanthropies 2018 STOP initiative:¹³¹

“Because of the tobacco industry’s decades of deception, the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World wholeheartedly supports the Bloomberg Foundation’s Stopping Tobacco Organizations and Products (STOP) campaign. We applaud the effort to monitor for public deception and “junk science” designed to cover up or mislead the public about the dangers of smoking or alternative products. We encourage independent review of all tobacco control science – including our own—and we encourage all tobacco control researchers to make their raw research data publicly available for secondary analyses, as the Foundation requires of its researchers”. 

Counter evidence: However, Kelly Henning from Bloomberg Philanthropies made it clear that the new global tobacco industry watchdog was needed exactly because of organisations such as the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World:¹³²

“What we face over and over again is this ceaseless pushback by the very well-funded tobacco industry against our work. Most recently, Philip Morris’s newly funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, announced not too many months ago, demonstrated how the tobacco industry uses every imaginable tactic to push back. That announcement made us stop and think that maybe there is more we should be doing to try to counter the tobacco industry’s interference with tobacco control. That was really what led Bloomberg Philanthropies to launch this effort”.

Claim: The Foundation has likened itself to the Truth Initiative:
“The Foundation’s bylaws, certificate of incorporation and funding agreement are unprecedentedly rigid and establish the Foundation as a completely independent organization, akin to the Legacy Foundation (now Truth Initiative)”.¹³³

Counter evidence: The Truth Initiative is a non-profit tobacco control organisation which was established as part of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between the tobacco industry and US states.¹³⁴
As such, its funding came from successful litigation against the tobacco industry.¹³⁵

In contrast, Philip Morris was instrumental in developing the Foundation along with Derek Yach (the Foundation “arose out of extended discussions with Philip Morris International”) and in the middle of 2018 was its sole funder.¹³⁶

Claim: In 2018, the Foundation outlined its plan to fund research centres:

• “Through the support of Centers of Excellence for science-based tobacco control research at academic centers around the world, the Foundation aims to develop the next generation of leaders and institutions to accelerate the end of smoking.¹³⁷
• And in an open letter from January 2018, Yach stated that “the Foundation shares your enthusiasm for a “centres-of-excellence” approach to our grant making. We anticipate the bulk of our funding will support such centres”.¹²⁷ 

Counter evidence: The tobacco industry has a history of founding research centres within universities, such as the PMI-funded Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research (CNSCR) at Duke University in North Carolina and the Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at the University of Nottingham funded by British American Tobacco.¹³⁸

The tobacco industry has also created non-university-affiliated research groups in efforts to build reputability around industry-funded science, such as the Council for Tobacco Research, which was formed in 1954 by US tobacco companies in an attempt to maintain uncertainty around the health harms caused by smoking.¹³⁹

2. As a supporter of the FCTC

Claim: The Foundation has framed itself as a supporter of (and indeed, champion of) the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control:

• In October 2017, Yach stated “I was quite surprised when the World Health Organization (WHO) recently issued a statement mischaracterizing the mission of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, and wrongly suggesting the Foundation doesn’t comply with Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). As someone deeply involved in the development of the FCTC as a cabinet director and executive director at WHO, I know a bit about the FCTC. And it is clear the goals and objectives of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World are squarely in line with the FCTC and especially Article 5.3”.¹²⁵
• In the same blog post, Yach continued “Furthermore, the Foundation plans to eventually apply for WHO Non-State Actor designation as a philanthropic foundation. The Foundation and WHO have a shared objective – to rid the world of cigarettes and dramatically reduce smoking-related disease and death”.¹²⁵

In January 2018, Ehsan Latif (a key member of the leadership team at the Foundation) claimed that the Foundation “will support the FCTC by filling the gaps in the FCTC that have received inadequate attention or funding” and outlined these as Article 14 (cessation support), Article 17 (supporting tobacco farmers) and Article 18 (protect the environment) among others.¹⁴⁰

Counter evidence: Although the Foundation purports to be a supporter of the FCTC, its funding is provided by Philip Morris International which, according to a 2017 Reuters report, is “running a secretive campaign to block or weaken treaty provisions that save millions of lives by curbing tobacco use” and who describe the FCTC as a “regulatory runaway train” driven by “anti-tobacco extremists.”.¹⁴¹

The Reuters report argues that specifically, PMI is attempting to undermine Articles 13, 15, 16, and importantly Article 5.3 which outlines the necessity for tobacco control research to be conducted away from the undue influence of the tobacco industry.¹⁴¹
In September 2017, the WHO outlined that given that Article 5.3 of the FCTC “obliges Parties to act to protect public health policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry…that…Governments should not accept financial or other contributions from the tobacco industry or those working to further its interests, such as this Foundation”.¹⁴²

The WHO continued by saying that “there are many unanswered questions about tobacco harm reduction, but the research needed to answer these questions should not be funded by tobacco companies….when it comes to the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, there are a number of clear conflicts of interest involved with a tobacco company funding a purported health foundation, particularly if it promotes sale of tobacco and other products found in that company’s brand portfolio. WHO will not partner with the Foundation. Governments should not partner with the Foundation and the public health community should follow this lead”.¹⁴²

Further, research suggests that the tobacco industry has used the idea of having common goals with the public health community to its advantage. For example, the concept of harm reduction has been used to “facilitate access to, and dialogue with scientists, public health experts, and policymakers, presenting themselves as ‘partners, rather than adversaries’ who share a common goal”.¹⁴³

3. As a supporter of social justice

Claim: In several of its blog posts the Foundation emphasises that it is on the side of the smoker:

• “Our focus is on the smoker – not the concept of the “smoker”, but on the individual. We believe the experience of smoking is multifaceted and deeply personal. Indeed, the State of Smoking Survey findings reinforce our view that smoking is deeply integrated into most smokers’ daily lives, so quitting means more than just giving up cigarettes” ¹⁴⁴
• “We can easily forget what tobacco control is about when we only focus on data and laws. What matters is the real people, struggling every day. From a smoker trying to quit a habit they know is going to harm them, or a farmer wondering where their next pay check will come from” ¹⁴⁵
• Further, Yach uses quotes from recently published book ‘Natural Causes’ (Ehrenreich, 2018) to state that “to be a smoker is to be a pariah” and “as more affluent people gave up the habit, the war on smoking…began to look like a war against the working class” and that smoking could be seen as “a kind of self-nurturance” ¹⁴⁶

Counter evidence: Tobacco kills more than 7 million people per year, yet, industry and industry-funded bodies have long since portrayed themselves on the side of the smoker.

For example, the tobacco industry has marketed cigarettes to marginalised groups as a kind of empowerment (for example, marketing menthol cigarettes to African American men “framing blacks’ dignity with their right to consume products and services of quality and creating intersecting agendas by linking smoking to meanings of fairness and upward mobility”¹⁴⁷ and cigarettes conceptualised as symbols of emancipation and “‘torches of freedom”’ for women.¹⁴⁸)
The tobacco industry is known to use front groups to befriend smokers – one tobacco-industry front group FOREST calls itself the “‘voice and friend of the smoker”.’ ¹⁴⁹

However, as the WHO pointed out in 2017, “PMI engages in large scale lobbying and prolonged and expensive litigation against evidence-based tobacco control policies such as those found in the WHO FCTC and WHO’s MPOWER tobacco control, which assists in implementation of the WHO FCTC. For example, just last year PMI lost a six year investment treaty arbitration with Uruguay, in which the company spent approximately US$ 24 million to oppose large graphic health warnings and a ban on misleading packaging in a country with fewer than four million inhabitants.”.¹⁴²

Such aggressive tactics seem at odds with the idea of a PMI-funded Foundation being on the side of the smoker.

Claim: In several of its blog posts, the Foundation emphasises that it is on the side of the tobacco farmer, and that one of its priorities is to ensure the economic security of low- and middle-income countries:

• “The issues facing the smallholder farmer are complex and intertwined. At the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, we will aim to solve those issues with a holistic approach that puts the farmer first. A new deal is needed for the smallholder tobacco farmer. Here our journey begins putting the farmer first” ¹⁵⁰
• “Consequently, the additional effect of losing significant foreign exchange earnings from export sales of tobacco will virtually cripple countries like Malawi, which relies on tobacco exports for 81% of its foreign exchange earnings.”.¹⁵⁰.
• In March 2018, the Foundation launched its Agricultural Transformation Initiative in Malawi ¹⁵¹

Counter evidence: In the past the tobacco industry has created front groups, (such as the International Tobacco Growers Association) that appear to represent the needs of worldwide tobacco growers, but are in fact intended to be industry lobbying groups.
Tobacco companies such as BAT are members of the Child Labour in Tobacco Growing Foundation (ECLT), however, research suggests that tobacco industry involvement in trying to tackle child labour only supports their corporate social responsibility agendas, rather than affecting any real change, and appears to be used to distract public attention away from the low wages and low tobacco prices that the industry pays in countries such as Malawi.¹⁵²

4. As a supporter of measured (rather than “onerous”) regulation

Claim: The Foundation also frames itself as a supporter of reasonable levels of regulation:

• In a blog in April 2018, David Janazzo wrote: “Regulatory regimes…must be properly aligned with the risk/benefit trade-off of combustible and other products. We believe this is particularly important for the poor smoker. Therefore, we support policies that tax combustible cigarettes at substantially higher rates than lower risk products”).¹⁵³
• In the same blog post, Janazzo also argued that ‘light-touch’ regulation means industry can flourish, which in turn means that consumers are the ’winners’.¹⁵⁴
• Janazzo went on to say that “pricing regimes not reflective of the risk profile, as well as negative perception and poor knowledge of product benefits versus risks based on the science, could hamper consumer confidence and thereby adoption at this stage. Bottom line, more research is needed quickly such that…regulators can place the appropriate protections around the products based on relative risk”.¹⁵⁴

Counter evidence: Here, the main message appears to be that ‘lower-risk products’ should be regulated less heavily than combustible cigarettes, and that minimal regulation is favourable for all. In the past, the tobacco industry has worked to frame itself as a supporter of measured regulation and has often lobbied for “pre-emptive legislation that protects its own interests”¹⁵⁵

The Foundation’s statements echo PMI’s own views on a ‘common-sense approach’ to regulation. On PMI’s website they state that ‘sensible, risk-based regulation of smoke-free products, combined with further restrictions on cigarettes, can help address the harm caused by smoking more effectively – and faster – than plain packaging and other traditional regulatory measures”¹⁵⁶

Claim: The Foundation also appears to frame itself as a knowledge broker, in order to support cross-industry drives for regulatory change:

“The Foundation is ready to foster a discussion on this…using, rather than banning technology…and draw upon and help bring leaders from oil, gas, transportation and agriculture to give their views about how some future regulatory systems could more rapidly support innovation and detect potential threats”.¹⁴⁵ 

Counter evidence: The tobacco industry, in the past, has been adept at recruiting other industries (often through the use of third-party groups, such as the Risk Assessment Forum) to gain support for changes to regulatory architectures. For example:

• British American Tobacco worked with the chemicals, fossil fuels and pharmaceuticals industry to create and implement industry-friendly standards of evidence in policymaking in the EU, under the banner of ‘reducing red tape’ within the ‘Better Regulation’ agenda. ¹⁵⁷
• PMI worked in the US to establish and implement industry-friendly standards of evidence around assessing health risks (e.g. through the Data Quality Act in the US and “‘good epidemiology”’ in the EU).¹³⁹

Ways the Foundation frames the public health community and public health measures

1. Negative characterisation of the public health community

Claim: The Foundation uses several arguments to negatively frame those who question its legitimacy and the effectiveness of harm reduction technology:

• Framing those who oppose the Foundation as also opposing public health goals: “there are organizations who, rather than joining forces to tackle this major health crisis in a collaborative, productive spirit, are choosing to oppose the Foundation and its goal of helping smokers quit by advancing the science of tobacco control. This opposition runs counter to the goals of many of these institutions and their leading scientists: to advance public health…” ¹³³
• Framing those who oppose the Foundation as inhibiting free speech: ””Despite what we believe are reasonable measures to assure our independence, WHO’s FCTC secretariat issued a premature view that we are not independent and that there is little evidence to support harm reduction. On that basis, they recommend parties to the FCTC not interact or engage with us. Their statement has been used to justify additional measures, including refusing WHO health and medical journals to publish work by FSFW-supported scientists, and banning those who are associated with the Foundation from attending the 2018 World Conference on Tobacco or Health being held in my home city of Cape Town. WHO is based in Geneva..”. ¹⁴⁵
• Framing those who do not embrace tobacco harm reduction strategies as opponents of technological progress: “disruptive technology disrupts the status quo and stirs deep emotions that can undermine progress if poorly managed…every time a technology disruption occurs, people get upset: the Luddites of the 18th century, reactions to GMOs, concerns about driverless cars. What happens first is fear. “Ban it” is the natural response”.¹⁴⁵
• Framing early refusals to work with the Foundation as knee-jerk emotional responses: “Most of the disruption I’m seeing in the early phase is coming from the traditional tobacco control core. Deep emotional issues related to even considering engagement with the tobacco industry…have led to early reactions. These reactions are compounded by WHO’s views on excluding harm reduction from tobacco control”.¹⁴⁵

Counter evidence: The tobacco industry often attempts to shift arguments towards more emotive ones such as framing public health advocates as the enemy of industry and free enterprise, and denigrating members of the tobacco control community.

For example, attempts to discredit non-industry scientists who produce unfavourable research have been documented, such as academics being professionally attacked for speaking up about second-hand smoke¹⁵⁸ and others labelled ‘scientific extremists.¹⁵⁹

2. Negative characterisation of public health measures other than harm reduction strategies

Claim: The Foundation appears to frame policy interventions which restrict the activity of the tobacco industry and act at a whole population level as ineffective:¹⁶⁰

“we have created smoke-free environments, mandated bigger health warnings, made cigarettes more expensive, and restricted advertising and marketing. Yet still, one billion people continue to smoke … there seems to be a disconnect between the development of policy and the benefit many smokers receive from policy”

Counter evidence: The tobacco control measures that the Foundation cites as ineffective here (smoke-free environments, health warnings, regulations on advertising, higher taxes) are known to be effective ¹⁶¹

Also, the Foundation fails to acknowledge here that the tobacco industry have actively and aggressively fought against such policy interventions. These factors appear to explain why, of the estimated 8.3 million tobacco-related deaths occurring by 2030, 6.8 million will be in low- and middle-income countries (where the tobacco industry is successfully fighting tobacco control policies). ¹⁶²

Claim: The Foundation also appears to frame taxes on tobacco products as discriminatory:

“Cigarette taxes are regressive…a recent article regarding sin taxes describes them as designed to punish the poor… we argue that the effectiveness of incremental tax increases in many cases will likely be subject to diminishing marginal returns – with the costs being borne unfairly by the poorest among us”.¹⁶³

Counter evidence: The article referenced by the Foundation in this blog post¹⁶⁴ was written by Christopher Snowdon, member of the tobacco industry-funded, right-wing think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs.

This is an example of the Foundation amplifying tobacco industry-funded voices without being transparent about their industry ties.
Although the Foundation posits that taxes are discriminatory, tobacco itself is a health inequality issue, and socioeconomic inequities in tobacco consumption in Europe, for example, are “large and widening”.¹⁶⁵

Further, it appears that the tobacco industry has actually purposefully targeted working class young adults, seeing them as a “critical market segment to promote growth”¹⁶⁶

An increase in taxes is a proven method for reducing harms associated with tobacco use since “tobacco tax increases are the most effective and inexpensive way of reducing tobacco smoking prevalence, consumption initiation and inequalities in smoking”.¹⁶⁷ 

TobaccoTactics Resources

• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World
• Philip Morris International
• Influencing Science
• Influencing Science: Funding Scientists

TCRG Research Blog

• The Philip Morris-funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World: tax return sheds light on funding activities, T.Legg, S.Peeters, P.Chamberlain, A.Gilmore, The Lancet, 6 June 2019
• Big Tobacco is funding the anti-smoking lobby but leaked documents reveal the real reason why, A. Rowell, The Conversation, 13 March 2018

Relevant Links

• Read the STOP report on PMI and the Foundation: Addiction At Any Cost: The Truth About Philip Morris International FSFW
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World homepage

References

The post Foundation for a Smoke-Free World: How it Frames Itself appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

In the UK, the tobacco industry has employed a tactic of using ex-Police officers to front its campaigns against the Point of Sale Display Ban and against plain packaging. This is a classic use of the third party technique.

Working for PMI

Image 1: PMI’s media messengers, PMI leaked powerpoint slide 2013

Since late 2011, Will O’Reilly, former Detective Chief Inspector with the Metropolitan Police, has been appearing in the press as a so-called “expert” working for Philip Morris International (PMI) tackling tobacco smuggling. O’Reilly is a director, along with his wife, of a company called WOR Consultancy Limited. ¹⁶⁸
Sometimes press articles mention that O’Reilly is working for the tobacco company,¹⁶⁹ but at other times they do not.¹⁷⁰¹⁷¹

“Media Messenger”

In 2013, leaked internal tobacco industry documents, including powerpoints, revealed the extent of PMI’s anti-plain packaging campaign in the UK during the previous year. See also:

• PMI’s Anti-Plain Packaging Lobbying Campaign
• PMI’s Anti-PP Media Campaign

Under the headline, “Media messengers” were the initials “WOR.” Given that Will O’Reilly’s company is WOR Consultancy Limited, it shows that the ex-Policeman is an integral part of the company’s anti-plain packaging public relations campaign. (Image 1)

Active In Scotland

O’Reilly has not just been active in England. After the Scottish government announced in September 2013 that it would proceed with plain packaging, O’Reilly started appearing in many Scottish media outlets scaremongering about tobacco smuggling.^{172173 174 175176}
For more see:

• Scotland Plain Packaging: Scaremongering over Illicit Tobacco

Investigations in Australia and Ireland

In his submission to the UK Government’s Independent Review into Plain Packaging undertaken by Sir Cyril Chantler, O’Reilly wrote:

Since 2011 my role as a consultant for Philip Morris International has been to conduct extensive research into the illicit trade in tobacco products and to act as a spokesperson on the subject. I have studied the illicit trade across the UK including separate projects in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland … More recently I travelled to Australia to gain an insight of the situation there since the introduction of standardised packaging or plain packaging (PP) for tobacco products.¹⁷⁷

Other Ex-Policemen with links to the Tobacco Industry

• Peter Sheridan – Former Assistant Chief Constable and Head of Organised Crime and Murder Investigation;
• Roy Ramm – Former Commander of Specialist Operations at New Scotland Yard.

TobaccoTactics Resources

• Third Party Techniques
• Hiring Independent Experts
• (APPG) on illicit trade

TCRG Research

The following study provides details on how the tobacco industry has manipulated media coverage of the illicit tobacco trade in the UK and over-estimated the size of the illicit market:

• Tobacco industry manipulation of data on and press coverage of the illicit tobacco trade in the UK, A. Rowell, K. Evans-Reeves, A. Gilmore, 2014, Tobacco Control, 23(e1), e35-e43, doi:10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2013-051397

Visit Tobacco Control Research Group: Peer-Reviewed Research for a full list of our journal articles of tobacco industry influence on public health policies.

References

The post Will O’Reilly appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

History

Unite was established in 2007, as the result of of a merger between Amicus and the Transport and General Workers Union (also known as T&G and TGWU). T&G was involved in lobbying against the 2001 EU Tobacco Products Directive on behalf of the tobacco industry.¹⁷⁹

Links to Tobacco Industry

Unite has members who are tobacco industry employees and the Union reported that it represents a substantial percentage of the sector: “Unite represents a large proportion of the 6,000 workers employed in the UK’s tobacco industry in JTI (Japan Tobacco International), Imperial Tobacco and BAT (British American Tobacco).”¹⁸⁰ Although it is not known how many of their members work in the tobacco sector, a statement previously released by the union suggested that it represents “thousands of members employed by or reliant on the tobacco industry.”¹⁸¹

Against Plain Packaging

Since the UK Government first disclosed it was considering plain packaging legislation in 2011, Unite has been outspoken against it.
In March 2011, on the day the government announced its intention to consider plain packaging, it released a statement condemning the measure. Unite compared plain packaging of tobacco products to a “Counterfeiters’ Charter” and stressed that it would lead to increased illicit trade of cigarettes, loss of jobs, and decreased state revenue. When speaking of forgers and illegal traders, Jennie Formby, Unite national officer for tobacco workers, said:

“Switching to plain packaging will make it easier to sell their illicit and unregulated products especially to young people. That would undermine the regulated industry, may increase long-term health problems and put workers in the regulated industry out of work. Government revenues would suffer significantly and pressure on health spending increase.”

The Union also argued that there was no evidence to support the claim that plain packaging would have the desired effects of reducing youth smoking uptake and would instead result in unintended consequences.
These arguments are reflective of the classic industry arguments used to oppose plain packaging legislation in countries such as the UK and Australia. For evidence on the weakness of these arguments, see Countering Industry Arguments against Plain Packaging and Tobacco Control Research Group: Evidence on Plain Packaging.
A media source also reported that Unite members submitted an anti-plain packaging petition to Westminster during the first consultation on Plain Packaging in the UK in 2012.¹⁸²
Philip Morris International (PMI) cited Unite in their submission to the first UK Consultation on Plain Packaging in 2012. When speaking of the threat to legitimate trade as a result of plain packaging, PMI quoted Unite to suggest that it would lead to an increase in illicit tobacco products.

Identified as an “Influencer” in PMI Leaked Docs

Leaked documents from PMI revealed the company’s plan for an extensive campaign against plain packaging in the UK ¹⁸³¹⁸⁴ PMI mapped individuals and organisations that it believed could be ‘influencers’ in the plain packaging policy decision. Unite was identified as a key influencer and therefore critical to PMI’s anti-plain packaging campaign.
For more information, see PMI’s Anti-Plain Packaging Lobbying Campaign.

TobaccoTactics Resources

• Tobacco Control Research Group: Peer-Reviewed Research
• Tobacco Control Research Group: Evidence on Plain Packaging
• Plain Packaging in the UK
• Countering Industry Arguments against Plain Packaging
• PMI’s Anti-Plain Packaging Lobbying Campaign
• Transport and General Workers Union
• Industry Interference and the 2001 EU Tobacco Products Directive

References

The post Unite appeared first on TobaccoTactics.