Career with British American Tobacco

Graham joined W.D. and H.O. Wills, a BAT company, in 1996 as a sales representative.¹
In 2001 Graham became BAT’s Director of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs.³ He regularly spoke out against anti-smoking groups, or “zealots” as he labelled them, and opposed legislation aimed at reducing smoking. He once called such efforts an “extreme case of nanny state and social engineering”.⁴
Graham left BAT in 2006 to start his own consultancy.¹

Flooding Health Officials with Freedom of Information Requests

The New Zealand Sunday Star Times reported in September 2009, that Graham, after leaving BAT, had “showered” the New Zealand Ministry of Health with Freedom of Information (FOI) requests relating to health NGOs.⁵
A 2010 study by Wong et al published in Tobacco Control, documented that 84% of FOI requests lodged with the New Zealand Ministry of Health between 2005 and 2009 had originated from the tobacco industry, including Graham’s PR company.⁶ The paper did not disclose the exact number of FOI requests submitted by Graham, but documented that ten “industry-related sources” had requested information relating to tobacco control expenditure.
In the article in the Sunday Star Times, Graham denied he had been paid by the tobacco industry to lodge the FOI requests.⁵ Instead he claimed that he had acted out of his personal interest to keep the government to account for its spending on tobacco control.⁵ “There is an official gravy train, he Graham says, where the government will spend $55 million through 115 groups on tobacco education and control. Yet despite spending ‘millions and millions’ of dollars every year, there was little to show for it.”⁵
Wong and co-authors argued that the nature and timing of the industry-related FOI requests, including those made by Graham, were aimed at disrupting New Zealand tobacco control policy, and a clear abuse of “legal avenues designed to protect the public’s right to access to official information”.⁶
The tobacco industry has used FOI on a number of occasions in Australia, the US and the UK to impede tobacco control progress. For more information see our page on Freedom of Information Requests.

Anti-Regulation Blogging on Tobacco and Food

Graham has been a guest blogger on kiwiblog.co.nz since August 2015.⁷ In March 2017 he posted a blog discrediting the New Zealand government’s tobacco policy.⁸ Graham claimed that recent increases in tobacco tax were wreaking “havoc” on small retailers and leading to an increase in illicit tobacco trade. He further criticised the government’s stance on e-cigarettes, arguing that there was an unprecedented support for tobacco harm reduction, which was “an opportunity that should not be lost”.⁸ A year earlier, Graham had also criticized the government’s opposition to e-cigarettes.⁹
Tobacco hasn’t been the only public health subject Graham blogged about. In March 2016, Graham criticised the British sugar tax, claiming that “No sugar tax will stop people consuming can of Coca-Cola if that’s what they want”.¹⁰
In 2015, Graham criticised the amount of money spent on fighting obesity, labelling researchers working in this field and in receipt of public funds “groups that do little aside from talk to themselves at conference for which they’ve utilised public money to organise, and naturally attend”.

TobaccoTactics Resources

• British American Tobacco
• Countering Critics
• Third Party Techniques
• Freedom of Information Requests
• Harm Reduction
• E-cigarettes

References

The post Carrick Graham appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

CCC has stated that it lobbies against “paternalistic” government regulations,¹³ covering “food and agriculture policies, fat/sugar tax, soda tax, food labelling, health care and harm reduction, trade initiatives (TTIP/TTP), transportation and aviation regulations”.¹⁴ It describes itself as a “consumer advocacy group” and a “grassroots movement”¹⁵ which “represents consumers in over 100 countries”.¹⁶

It has lobbied against the regulation of tobacco products in the EU and other countries, including against plain packaging. In May 2020 CCC set up the World Vapers’ Alliance (WVA), which lobbies for the promotion of e-cigarettes and against their regulation.¹⁷

Background

CCC’s parent organisation is Students For Liberty (SFL),¹⁸ an American libertarian organisation linked to billionaires Charles and David Koch and partner of the Atlas Network.¹⁹²⁰ CCC was listed as a partner of the Atlas Network in its 2018 Annual Report.²¹

In 2017, SFL launched CCC with a budget of  $210,296.²² CCC describes itself as “totally open” to corporate donations.²³

On the EU transparency register, CCC declared total income of close to €7.8 million in its first two years of operation, in the form of donations from unspecified sources.²⁴²⁵ In 2019 this fell to around €1,000,000.²⁶²⁷ Its declaration for 2021, published in March 2022, declared no funding.¹⁴

The organisation states that it has received financial support from consumer goods, energy, manufacturing, digital, healthcare, cryptocurrency and fin-tech industries.²⁸ It has also received funding from the Atlas Network (and associated company the Atlas Project), the Geneva Network,²⁹ and directly from transnational tobacco companies (see below).¹⁶³⁰ An investigation by Le Monde and The Investigative Desk revealed that CCC received a EU€14,000 grant from the Atlas Network in 2018.³¹ According to CCC’s own code of ethics, published on its website, its “campaigns, op-eds, and videos are not sent to supporters before they are released. Partners see our content and outputs at the same time as the general public.”¹⁶ It does not detail what other input any supporters might have up to the point of release.

Staff

CCC’s Managing Director is Frederik Roeder.³²³³ Prior to working for CCC, Roeder worked for SFL where he co-founded their European Branch.³¹

Other persons that work for, or have previously worked for the CCC:

• Adam Cleave, Senior Adviser (previously worked for Imperial Tobacco)³⁴³⁵
• Jeff Stier, Senior Fellow, tobacco harm reduction advocate³⁶³⁷
• Bill Wirtz, Policy Analyst
• Luca Bertoletti, European Affairs Manager
• Yaël Ossowski, Deputy Director³³
• Maria Chaplia, Research Manager

Many CCC staff have previously held, or currently hold, roles within SFL.³⁸³³

Roeder, Bertoletti and Chaplia were registered EU lobbyists in 2017/18.²⁵ Bertolleti is also a Director of a public relations company called B&K Agency.³⁹

LATAM Policy Fellow Antonella Marty is the Associate Director of the Center for Latin America at Atlas Network.³³⁴⁰ As of March 2022, CCC also had Policy Fellows for South Africa, Nigeria, Taiwan and Indonesia.³³

Connections with Governments

Peter Liese, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), collaborates with the World Vapers’ Alliance.⁴¹⁴² In 2022, CCC’s website stated that it was the ‘secretariat’ for a cross party group in the EU Parliament called “Innovation, Brands, and IP – The future of Europe group”, also referred to as “MEPS4Innovation”.⁴¹⁴³ Claiming over 30 members “representing most EU states”, its work areas were listed as: “Digital; Healthcare; Agriculture; Harm Reduction; Consumer Goods” (all of potential interest to tobacco companies).⁴³ Despite claims to and the use of the EU Parliament logo on its webpage, this group was not on the list of parliamentary ‘intergroups’ and appeared to have no official role.⁴¹⁴⁴

In January 2022, Lord Wharton joined CCC as a Strategic Adviser.³³⁴⁵ James Lord Wharton is a member of the UK House of Lords, was previously an adviser to Boris Johnson and, as of 2022, is Chair of the Office for Students. He lists CCC as one of his Directorships on the UK Government register of interests.⁴⁶

At the same time, Alexander Kvitashvili joined CCC as Public Health Advisor. An independent consultant to the World Health Organization, Kvitashvili was Minister of Healthcare of Ukraine (to 2016), and prior to that Minister of Health of Georgia.³³⁴⁵

Relationship with the Tobacco Industry

CCC has received funding from Japan Tobacco International (JTI), who co-funded its launch event,²⁸⁴⁷ JTI was a member of CCC in 2017.⁴⁸⁴⁹¹⁶ Upon request, JTI declined to disclose what this membership entailed and how much financial support was linked to it.⁵⁰

In addition, Roeder contributed to “Regulating Consumers?”, a Euractiv Special Report sponsored by JTI for €10,000.⁵¹⁵²

In 2018, CCC stated that it had received funding from Philip Morris International.²⁸

Altria has donated an unspecified amount of money to CCC annually from 2018.^53545556

CCC has received funding from British American Tobacco (BAT) since 2019, in support of CCC’s “tobacco harm reduction advocacy”.¹⁶³¹

See below for CCC’s outputs relating to e-cigarettes and harm reduction.

• For more on BAT’s commercial interests in this area see Newer Nicotine and Tobacco Products: British American Tobacco.

Attempt to Discredit World Health Organisation (WHO) and IARC

In September 2018, in the run up to the meeting of the 8th Conference of the Parties (COP 8) of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), CCC scheduled three strongly biased roundtables to discuss “WHO’s shortcomings in working towards better global public health and how the WHO actively blocks healthier technologies in the area of harm reduction”.⁵⁷ The events also condemned the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) assessment of the pesticide glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen. None of the invited speakers had public health qualifications.

London, 6 September 2018

Scheduled presentations at the London roundtable included:⁵⁷

• Bill Wirtz, CCC: “Too busy with the wrong Priorities: Does the WHO suffer from Mission Creep?”
• Frederick Roeder, CCC: “Foreign Aid for Public Health and Clandestine Maneuvering: Insights from the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control”
• Christopher Snowdon, Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA): “Public Funding of Public Health Activists”
• Daniel Pryor, Adam Smith Institute “How the UK can become a leader in tobacco harm reduction”

Brussels, 10 September 2018

At the Brussels roundtable, the following presentations were on the agenda:⁵⁸

• Bill Wirtz, CCC: “Too busy with the wrong Priorities: Does the WHO suffer from Mission Creep?”
• Frederick Roeder, CCC: “Foreign Aid for Public Health and Clandestine Maneuvering sic: Insights from the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control”
• “The WHO and The International Agency for Research and Cancer (IARC): How evidence based policies are sabotaged by those who ought enforce them”, by Professor David Zaruk, Odisee University College

Rome, 18 September 2018

The focus of the roundtable in Italy seemed to be on E-cigarettes and the product’s future in Italy. Listed external speakers were:

• Carolina Pellegrini (Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori di Milano)
• Daniele Capezzone (New Direction Italia)
• Alessandro Colucci (Camera dei Deputati)

Lobbying for Newer Nicotine and Tobacco Products

Research with Twitter data by Bath TCRG highlighted the nature of CCC’s activity around meeting of the 8th Conference of the Parties (COP 8), and those of other tobacco industry allies.⁵⁹

The researchers concluded that:

The nature of the activity on Twitter around COP8, including a substantial online presence by PMI executives and NGP [Next Generation Products, also referred to as newer nicotine and tobacco products] advocates with links to organisations funded directly and indirectly by PMI, is highly consistent with PMI’s 2014 corporate affairs strategy, which described engaging tobacco harm reduction advocates to ‘amplify and leverage the debate on harm reduction’ around events such as the COP.⁵⁹

After this CCC continued to direct its lobbying efforts to the promotion of e-cigarettes, which it frames as “harm reduction advocacy”. It became more active from 2020, in the run up to COP 9, when it received further funding from BAT.

2018: COP 8

During the meeting of the 8^th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the WHO FCTC in October 2018, the CCC organised the “Nicotine is Not Your Enemy Soirée”. The event advertisement criticised the WHO for “condemning nicotine” and refusing to “support harm reduction” and stated its “hope to convince delegates of COP8 to join us and learn more about harm reduction”.⁶⁰ Professor Bernd Mayer, who sits on the World Vapers’ Alliance’s advisory board, spoke at the event which also included “live demonstrations of harm-reducing technologies.”⁶⁰⁶¹⁶²

CCC Director Roeder and Co-Director Ossowski registered as journalists at COP 8, citing their contributions to libertarian news sites, which gave them access to the events sessions. However, their press badges were later suspended for “misrepresentation.”³¹⁶²

This lobbying continued after COP 8 and in the run-up to COP 9.

2020

In June 2020, CCC called for the “liberalisation of vaping”.⁶³ It also put out a statement arguing that the US State of Georgia’s proposed tax on e-cigarettes would “harm poor consumers”.⁶⁴ CCC also lobbied politicians in Alaska to reject a proposed e-cigarette tax.⁶⁵

In September 2020, CCC published a report called “Why Vape Flavors Matter”, co-written with the WVA. The report argued against proposals to ban e-cigarette flavours in the US and EU.⁶⁶ CCC also lobbied against proposed flavour bans in California, Connecticut and Maine.⁶⁷⁶⁸⁶⁹

In October 2020, CCC published a report called “Vaping and the Gateway Myth”, also co-written with the WVA⁷⁰⁷¹ It also recommended that e-cigarette advertising should be allowed.⁷⁰

Neither report stated that CCC receives tobacco industry funding.

2021: COP 9

CCC submitted evidence to the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group for Vapings COP 9 inquiry. The submission said the UK should object to the FCTC’s e-cigarette treaty proposals and instead “champion… harm-reducing technologies such as vaping.” Adding: “with the United Kingdom’s influence, the FCTC could once more achieve its purpose of reducing tobacco consumption around the world.”⁷²

In October 2021, a month before COP 9, CCC co-signed a letter “calling on the Biden administration’s WHO delegation to recognise the value of tobacco harm reduction.” The letter said the WHO pursued “quit or die” policies that “keep people using cigarettes.”⁷³

The World Vapers’ Alliance (WVA) launched in May 2020, initially presented as an independent partner organisation of CCC.⁷⁴ WVA later acknowledged it had been established by CCC.⁷⁵ It is linked to Red Flag Consulting a lobbying company which has BAT and CCC as clients.

Investigations by Le Monde and The Investigative Desk showed that WVA was actively lobbying against the regulation of e-cigarettes before and during COP 9, in November 2021.³¹ Videos on the WVA YouTube channel depicted the organisation’s activities, including its “Back Vaping Beat Smoking” branded campaign van and its presence in Geneva (although COP was held virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic).⁷⁶

2022

In January 2022, Ossowski wrote an article for CCC’s website, blaming “the public health lobby” for a rise in smoking rates.⁷⁷ David Clement, CCC’s North American Affairs Manager, wrote an op-ed in the Financial Post in June 2022 that argued “heavy-handed vaping regulations and taxation do nothing but create more smokers”.³³⁷⁸

Lobbying against proposed US menthol ban

Seminar organised by Americans for Tax Reform

In May 2022, Ossowski took part in a virtual seminar, titled “The Devastating Impact of the FDA’s Proposed Menthol & Flavored Cigar Ban”, convened by the Americans for Tax Reform (ATR).⁷⁹ All but one of the panellists represented organisations which have accepted tobacco industry funding:

• Tim Andrews represented ATR, which has accepted money from RJ Reynolds (a subsidiary of BAT), Altria, JTI and BAT. ^53545680
• Guy Bentley represented The Reason Foundation, which has accepted money from Altria and is an Atlas Network partner^195354555680
• Major Neill Franklin, represented the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, which in 2019 received more than a third of its funding from RJ Reynolds American.⁸¹ It has also accepted money from Altria.^53545556
• Lindsey Stroud represented the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA), which does not reveal its funding sources. TPA is an Atlas Network³¹Stroud worked for the Heritage Foundation from 2016 to 2020, which has received funding from Altria.⁸⁰⁸²

CCC Session: “FDA’s Menthol Melee”

In June 2022 CCC hosted a session called “the Menthol Melee” which was chaired by Ossowski.⁸³ The session included contributions from former law enforcement officers and Micheal Landl (Director of the World Vapers’ Alliance), Jeff Stier (Senior Fellow at CCC and Taxpayers Protection Alliance) and Dr Prritika Kumar (Senior Fellow at R Street Institute).

The speakers argued banning menthol cigarettes would incentivise the illicit tobacco trade and bring police departments into further conflict with black communities. The latter of these arguments is the same used by RJ Reynolds consultants.⁸¹

• See also the long read on Racism and the Tobacco Industry

Lobbying on illicit trade around MOP 2

CCC also lobbies on illicit trade, including the illicit trade of tobacco products.⁸⁴ In a July 2020 EU policy paper, “Illicit Trade is Dangerous for Consumers”, CCC argued that to prevent the illicit trade of tobacco products, plain packaging should be rejected, taxes should be limited and there should be no further restrictions on their marketing and advertisement.⁸⁵

In November 2021, around the time of the second meeting of the Members of the Parties (MOP 2) to the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, CCC organised a webinar on the topic.⁸⁶⁸⁷ This was introduced by the Irish MEP Sean Kelly. Although CCC promoted this as a live event, Mr Kelly’s statement was pre-recorded and he did not take part in the discussion.⁸⁶ The other speakers were from a Spanish business forum and a UK based brand consultancy.⁸⁷

CCC submitted a response to the EU consultation on tobacco taxation in 2021, citing the risk of illicit trade ⁸⁸ Its submission stated that:

“Smoking should be seen as a matter of consumer choice and personal responsibility. Tobacco products should not see any further scrutiny”.⁸⁸

Citing concern over illicit trade is a well-documented industry argument against taxation.

Opposing intellectual property wavier on COVID 19 vaccines

CCC has opposed attempts by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to improve access to COVID-19 vaccines. WTO has considered temporarily waiving intellectual property rights relating to the prevention, containment or treatment of COVID-19, which would allow WTO member countries to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines to cope with demands.⁸⁹ CCC published an article in May 2021 criticising President Biden’s support of the waiver,⁹⁰ and another in June 2022 arguing that the “TRIPS waiver will cost us decades of progress”.⁹¹ CCC has also advocated for Germany and Canada to oppose the waiver,⁹²⁹³ and appears to have attempted to influence Members of the European Parliament on the subject, predominantly through its “Innovation, Brands and Intellectual Property- The Future of Europe” group.⁹⁴

Tobacco companies that are financially linked to CCC have significant investments in COVID-19 vaccine development. BAT announced in April 2020 that its subsidiary, Kentucky BioProcessing, is developing a COVID 19 vaccine, and has since launched a new company, KBio Holdings Limited, to accelerate this development.⁹⁵ Philip Morris International is a major shareholder in Medicago, a Canadian biotechnology company whose COVID 19 vaccine was approved for use in Canada in February 2022.⁹⁶

The tobacco industry has a history of using intellectual property arguments to oppose new tobacco control regulations, such as the introduction of plain packaging and graphic health warnings.⁹⁷

• For more information on tobacco industry COVID-19 vaccines see Tobacco Company Investments in Pharmaceutical & NRT Products.

Lobbying against plain packaging

CCC called on EU policymakers to reject plain packing in a July 2020 policy paper, arguing that it “increased the presence of illicit tobacco in all the countries which implemented it.”⁸⁴

In March 2021, CCC made a submission to the UK Governments consultation on the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 and the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015. CCC argued “tobacco products should not see any further scrutiny”, that plain packaging “hasn’t proved to be effective” and nor have health warning labels “in helping smokers quit”.⁹⁸

CCC also argued that “further bans of vaping products will drive more consumers to illegal products on the unregulated black market, where there is no guarantee of safety or quality. A larger black market will make it even easier for minors to purchase vaping products with no age verifications at all.”⁹⁸

Opposed tobacco endgame

CCC has lobbied against proposed tobacco endgame policies in the UK.⁹⁹ For details see Tobacco Industry Interference with Endgame Policies. 

Other Affiliations

• In addition to being scheduled to speak at the anti-WHO event, the IEA was involved in launching the CCC in April 2017. Christopher Snowdon, the IEA’s “Head of Lifestyle Economics”, featured in the promotional video for the CCC’s launch event.¹⁰⁰
• At its launch event, the CCC disclosed that it “collaborated with” EPICENTER, a free-market think tank collective, set up and funded by the IEA.¹⁰¹
• CCC was represented by Jeff Stier at the launch of Forest EU, a tobacco industry-funded pro-smoking group.¹⁰²

Relevant Links

• Consumer Choice Center website

TobaccoTactics Resources

• Institute of Economic Affairs
• Atlas Network
• World Vapers’ Alliance
• EPICENTER
• Forest EU
• Jeff Stier
• Christopher Snowdon
• Lobby groups

TCRG Research

Exploring the Twitter activity around the eighth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, L. Robertson, A. Joshi, T. Legg et al, Tobacco Control, 11 November 2020, doi: 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2020-055889

References

The post Consumer Choice Center appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

Background

The IEA is registered in the UK as an educational charity and a charitable company , and also operates in Belgium.¹⁰⁴¹⁰⁵ IEA established EPICENTER in Belgium in 2014.

For a full list of the IEA’s current staff, advisors, and fellows, see its website. Prominent staff members and advisors include:

Staff

• In October 2023 the IEA appointed Tom Clougherty as Executive Director.¹⁰⁶ From 2018 Clougherty was Research Director and Head of Tax at the Centre for Policy Studies.¹⁰⁷ He previously held roles at the Reason Foundation and Cato Institute.
• Mark Littlewood was IEA’s Director General from October 2009.¹⁰⁸ Littlewood was also one of the founders of the now defunct Progressive Vision, a libertarian lobby group, and its offshoot Liberal Vision. In August 2023, the IEA announced that Littlewood would be stepping down.¹⁰⁹
• The libertarian blogger Christopher Snowdon is the IEA’s Head of the Lifestyle Economics unit which was established in January 2013 to “put hard evidence at the heart of all its publications” about the “hazards and failures of state paternalism”.¹¹⁰ IEA’s webpage also states: “Time and time again, we see well-intentioned but ill-considered policies backfire by fuelling the black market, exacerbating poverty and encouraging more harmful consumption”.¹¹⁰

Advisors

• Alex Deane of Big Brother Watch is a member of the IEA’s advisory council.⁴⁵
• Professor Andrew Lilico, whose research has been funded by Japan Tobacco International (JTI), is a member of the IEA’s Academic Advisory Council.¹¹¹ He is also IEA Economics Fellow.¹¹²

Directors

• Kevin Bell, listed as an IEA Director on Companies House,¹⁰⁵ is a former Director of the now-dissolved British public relations firm, Bell Pottinger.¹¹³ Before its dissolution in 2014 in the wake of scandal and accusations of unethical practices, Bell Pottinger was paid by Imperial Brands (previously Imperial Tobacco) to broker access to EU officials. For more information, see our page on Imperial Brands.

 Initiatives

• An investigation by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in May 2019 identified an organisation called Freer set up in 2018 which promotes free market policies. It is based at the IEA and shares staff but “is not registered as a charity and is therefore not subject to the same political lobbying restrictions that constrain the IEA’s activities”.¹¹⁴ Freer co-chair Luke Graham MP told the BMJ:

“The Freer initiative, like the IEA, has no corporate line on public policy proposals. It is united by people who broadly support free markets and free people. All views published by the IEA or Freer are the author’s own.”¹¹⁴

• In April 2019 Freer published a collection of essays called On Social Freedom.¹¹⁵ It covered topics such as Ben Bradley MP opposing taxes on meat and sugar and Christopher Snowdon opposing minimum unit pricing. Writer Matt Ridley contributed a chapter promoting vaping where he wrote that the decline in smoking rates and cigarette consumption in the UK was due to e-cigarettes.¹¹⁵ This echoes industry claims but independent studies show a far more complex picture.¹¹⁶
• In October 2015, the IEA launched the “Paragon Initiative”, a five-year project with the aim of putting “every area of government activity under the microscope” and analysing “the failure of current policies”.¹¹⁷¹¹⁸
• In 2014, the IEA established and fully funded the think-tank collective EPICENTER.¹¹⁹ In 2020, it became funded by its “member think tanks”, including IEA.¹²⁰ EPICENTER launched the ‘Nanny State Index’, designed by Christopher Snowdon, in 2016.¹²¹The 2021 version of the Index claimed that “nanny statists” had “exploited” the global COVID-19 pandemic.¹²²¹²³

For more information, see our page on EPICENTER.

Tobacco Industry Funding and Lack of Transparency

The IEA does not disclose its funding sources. Open Democracy, an independent international media platform, gives IEA a low ranking for transparency,¹²⁴ as did the watchdog Transparency International (in 2018).¹²⁵¹²⁶

IEA’s stated policy is to “leave it to our funders to decide whether to disclose their support”.¹²⁷

Evidence below shows that tobacco companies, amongst others, have financially supported the IEA for decades.¹²⁸¹²⁹

In May 2019, 32 Conservative MPs were named as linked financially, directly or indirectly, to the IEA by a BMJ investigation. Several members of Boris Johnson’s administration, who became Prime Minister on 24 July 2019,¹¹⁴¹³⁰ have links to the IEA, including Dominic Raab (Foreign Secretary), Priti Patel (Home Secretary), Jacob Rees-Mogg (Leader of the House of Commons),¹³¹ Matt Hancock (former Health Secretary), Theresa Villars (Environment Secretary),¹³¹ and Kwasi Kwarteng (Minister of State in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy).¹³²

From 2010 until his appointment as health secretary in July 2018, Matt Hancock MP received a total of UK£32,000 from Neil Record, who joined the IEA board of trustees in 2008 and became its chair in 2015.¹¹⁴ The BMJ reported:

“Hancock did not respond directly to The BMJ’s request to confirm whether he had been aware that the IEA was funded by a tobacco company when he accepted donations from the chair of the institute’s trustees. A spokesperson said only that ‘all donations have been declared in line with parliamentary regulations’.”¹¹⁴

Michael Hintze, another IEA trustee, has also made gifts or donations to MPs.¹¹⁴ These include Robert Buckland MP, who was made Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice on 24 July 2019¹³³, and Boris Johnson MP, who later became Prime Minister on 24 July 2019.¹¹⁴¹³⁴

The BMJ investigation into the IEA also found that: “Among the MPs most closely and publicly associated ideologically with the IEA is Dominic Raab, MP for Esher and Walton in Surrey since 2010”.¹¹⁴ On 24 July 2019, Raab was appointed Foreign Secretary.¹³⁵ Raab’s special advisor, Stephanie Lis, was the IEA’s Director of Communications until August 2018. Before joining the IEA, Lis was Campaign Manager at the Freedom Association, where she spoke out against plain packaging of cigarettes as being “mad and dangerous”.¹³⁶

British American Tobacco

The IEA has received funding from British American Tobacco (BAT) since 1963. Until May 2021, BAT described itself as an IEA member in the EU Transparency Register.¹³⁷¹³⁸

The IEA has received annual donations from BAT. It refused to disclose the amount in 2019.¹³⁹. In 2018 the donation amounted to £40,000.¹⁴⁰ The yearly amount has increased from £10,000 in 2011 to £20,000 in 2012 and £40,000 since 2013. ^{141142143144145146}

For details of more historic IEA funding from BAT, see: IEA: History of Close Ties with the Tobacco Industry.

Imperial Brands

Imperial Brands (previously Imperial Tobacco) has also been a long-term financial backer of the IEA. In 2014, Dr Steve Stotesbury, then-Head of Regulatory Science at Imperial Tobacco, wrote in an email to the Tobacco Control Research Group that “We have been supporters of the IEA for many years, stretching back well over a decade.”¹⁴⁷

Philip Morris International

In 2013, Philip Morris International (PMI) confirmed IEA membership to British newspaper The Guardian. The company was quoted as saying: “We confirm that we are a member of the Institute of Economic Affairs, but cannot provide you with any further details.”¹⁴⁸

An internal 1998 Philip Morris document detailing “Public Policy Donations” lists a donation to the IEA’s American funding arm, the “American Friends of the IEA”, to the value of US$10,000.¹⁴⁹

Japan Tobacco International

Japan Tobacco International (JTI) told The Guardian in 2013 that: “We work with the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Adam Smith Institute as their economic and behavioural expertise help us better understand which tobacco regulation measures will work and which will not.”¹⁴⁸

IEA as a “Messenger” for the Tobacco Industry

In a 2012 leaked PMI presentation, the tobacco company identified the IEA as a potential “media messenger” in its strategy to prevent the introduction of Plain Packaging legislation in the UK.¹⁵⁰ This is consistent with historic evidence which shows that the tobacco company had identified the IEA as “particularly useful for PM” as early as 1995¹⁵¹ and that it could potentially assist in “policy outreach”, being one of seven groups that would “pro-actively relay our positions” and “establish an echo chamber for PM messages/responses addressing major issues facing the company.”¹⁵²

Documents dating from 1996 and 2001 show that BAT also considered the IEA a “vehicle for delivery” of UK reputation initiatives.¹⁵³¹⁵⁴

Criticised Tobacco Control Legislation

The IEA has a history of criticising tobacco regulation such as plain packaging and the smoking ban in pubs, arguing that they represent an attack on civil liberties.¹⁵⁵

Plain Packaging

UK plain packaging legislation was approved in March 2015 after many years of consultation and significant opposition from tobacco companies and their allies, much of which hinged around evidence. The IEA was very active in the policy debate around plain packaging, engaging in activities to influence public opinion and lobby decision-makers against the policy, promoting tobacco industry-commissioned research, and creating doubt about independent scientific evidence throughout.

Influencing Public Opinion: Plain Packaging “Will Do Nothing to Improve Health”

In April 2012, when the UK Government announced its first consultation on plain packaging, the IEA’s response in the media closely resembled the arguments put forward by the tobacco industry. Commenting on the government announcement, Mark Littlewood, said that the consultation was “a patronising and unnecessary distraction which will do nothing to improve the public’s health”.¹⁵⁶ Littlewood also suggested that the policy might increase illicit trade, and that the best way to tackle underage smoking is through “improved education and better enforcement at the point of sale.”¹⁵⁶

In April 2014, the IEA published a pamphlet authored by Snowdon called: “Plain Packaging – Questions That Need Answering”.¹⁵⁷ The pamphlet repeated arguments commonly used by the tobacco industry and quoted industry-funded evidence, for example PMI-funded research by Roy Morgan Research.

Supported Tobacco-Industry Funded Campaign

IEA Director Littlewood was a prominent supporter of tobacco industry front group Forest‘s Hands Off Our Packs campaign against plain packaging, and was an invited guest speaker at the campaign’s launch in January 2012.¹⁵⁸¹⁵⁹ In addition, IEA’s Head of Lifestyle Economics Christopher Snowdon wrote a campaign blog in support of Hands Off Our Packs.¹⁶⁰ Angela Harbutt, the IEA’s Development Director, was the coordinator of the Hands Off Our Packs campaign.¹⁶¹

Lobbied Decision Makers

In January 2014, the IEA submitted evidence to the UK Government’s independent review into standardised packaging of tobacco undertaken by Sir Cyril Chantler. The IEA’s submission, written by Snowdon, re-iterated common tobacco industry arguments against plain packaging.¹⁶² Snowdon drew from industry-funded research, conducted by KPMG, which was dismissed as “flawed” by the Australian Government.¹⁶³

In a statement following the announcement of a second public consultation on the introduction of plain packaging in June 2014, Littlewood claimed that the evidence was “not on the side of plain packaging”.¹⁶⁴

Display Bans

The UK government introduced an England-wide Point of Sale Display Ban in 2010, to be implemented in all retail outlets by 2015. A legal challenge by BAT, Imperial, PMI and JTI ensued but was dropped in December 2011.¹⁶⁵ Also see: Point of Sale Display Ban.

In 2010, the IEA published a discussion paper by Patrick Basham entitled “Canada’s ruinous tobacco display ban: economic and public health lessons”.¹⁶⁶ The publication concluded: “the empirical evidence does not demonstrate that tobacco display bans have reduced smoking prevalence or consumption in the four countries where they have been instituted: Canada, Iceland, Ireland, and Thailand. In this sense, display bans appear to be – like so many other tobacco control policies – highly ineffective”.¹⁶⁶

The discussion paper was strongly criticised by health charity Cancer Research UK, which argued that Basham’s paper had a number of “general weaknesses”, including:

• the failure to disclose Basham’s or the IEA’s longstanding links with the tobacco industry;
• the lack of evidence published in peer-reviewed journals; and
• the presentation of “selective evidence” that “undermined claims about the effects of a display ban”.¹⁶⁷

In March 2011, Littlewood was one of a number of signatories of a Letter to the Editor to the Daily Telegraph attacking the Government’s position on tobacco control and arguing against display bans.

Tobacco Advertising

In 1997 and 1998, the IEA’s Roger Bate was the author of multiple articles in the Wall Street Journal Europe and the Financial Times opposing tobacco advertising bans. He argued that a ban on tobacco advertising would not only fail to reduce smoking, but ultimately lead to an increase in smoking.^168169170

In 2007, the IEA republished a study by Professor Hugh High that the IEA had originally published at the end of the 1990s which concluded that “there is no evidence that advertising of tobacco products leads to increase in the total consumption of tobacco.”¹⁷¹ The IEA argued that High’s 1990s study was still relevant today, “particularly in the so called ‘obesity debate’.”¹⁷²

See also our page on Hugh High.

Criticism of UK Public Health

In 2021, the IEA published several pieces criticising the UK public health goals, including: the smoke-free by 2030 goal,¹⁷³¹⁷⁴  efforts to raise the minimum age for tobacco purchasing to 21,¹⁷⁵¹⁷⁶ outdoor smoking bans,^177178179180 and e-cigarette control policies.¹⁸¹

In June 2021, IEA uploaded a report to a pre-print server that argued that the UK government saved UK£19.8 billion from “early death savings”. The authors argue that the government is “better off every year due to smoking”, because smoking-attributable deaths “save” money that would otherwise be spent on medical expenses. The report uses these findings in part to argue that tobacco taxation should be lower.¹⁸²¹⁸³

In May 2019, the British Medical Journal reported 20 instances over the previous year of the IEA attacking public health policies on issues such as alcohol pricing and sugar taxes.¹¹⁴

Opposed tobacco endgame 

The IEA has lobbied against proposed tobacco endgame policies in the UK.¹⁸⁴ For details see Tobacco Industry Interference with Endgame Policies. 

Funding from the Food and Beverage Industries

A letter to the IEA’s “American Friends” suggests that the IEA has received donations from a range of food and soft drinks companies such as Coca-Cola, Tesco, Unilever, and Tate and Lyle Sugars, amongst others.¹⁸⁵

The IEA also co-hosted an event with Tate and Lyle at the 2016 Conservative Party Conference.¹⁸⁶

Attacked the WHO

In 2000, Roger Bate wrote a letter to the Financial Times arguing that the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) should be “rejected”.¹⁸⁷

That same year, the IEA published a pamphlet attacking the WHO for its campaign against tobacco.¹⁸⁸ The author of the pamphlet, writer and philosopher Roger Scruton, was on the payroll of JTI and later conceded that he should have “declared an interest”.¹⁸⁸ A leaked email revealed that Scruton, was receiving a monthly fee from JTI of UK£4500 and had asked for a UK£1000 per month pay rise to place more pro-tobacco articles in prestigious newspapers and international magazines.¹⁸⁹

In 2020, IEA published a critique of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Public Health England (PHE) authored by Christopher Snowden. It argued that the “failing” of WHO in handling the COVID-19 pandemic was in part due to its involvement with “lifestyle issues”, including sugar consumption and vaping that has contribute to its “lack of focus” on infectious diseases.¹⁹⁰

COP 9

In 2021, its attention turned to the upcoming WHO FCTC 9^th Conference of the Parties (COP) due to take place in October. On 24 June, the IEA hosted a webinar titled “COP9 and Its Impact on Vapers”.¹⁹¹¹⁹² Its website stated:

“The need for a discussion on this obscure bureaucracy arises because COP9 poses a significant threat to the United Kingdoms’ successful approach to harm reduction policy.”¹⁹¹

It also stated that the WHO was an “enemy of vaping” and that the panel would discuss:

“who represents the UK at COP, how decisions are reached (and whether we should listen to them), the impact of these decisions on the United Kingdom’s harm reduction progress, and the 2030 smoke-free target.”¹⁹¹

Members of the panel included: Mark Littlewood, Matt Ridley (Vice-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Vaping), Christopher Snowdon, and Louis Houlbrooke (from the New Zealand Taxpayers Union).

COP 10

Ahead of COP 10, Snowdon criticised the WHO’s stance on e-cigarettes as “unscientific and fanatical”, and described the WHO as a “fundamentally corrupt and incompetent”.¹⁹³

During the week of COP 10, Snowdon criticised the exclusion of journalists, members of the public and “experts who disagree with the agency’s hostile stance towards e-cigarettes”. He also stated that Panama was a country that had followed WHO’s approach to tobacco control, but that it now has “an extraordinarily large black market in tobacco”.¹⁹⁴

Snowdon also attended the Taxpayers Protection Alliance’s ‘Good COP’ event ¹⁹⁵ (see Interference around COP 10 & MOP 3 for more information).

TobaccoTactics Resources

• IEA: History of Close Ties with the Tobacco Industry
• IEA: Working with RJ Reynolds, BAT and Philip Morris on Environmental Risk
• Preventing the Government-Funded Charity Sector Lobbying Government

Relevant Link

• IEA website

References

The post Institute of Economic Affairs appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

Christopher Snowdon is a writer and journalist who holds a history degree. When Snowdon first launched his blog Velvet Glove, Iron Fist in 2008, he referred to himself as “an independent researcher and author” with “no affiliation or financial ties with the tobacco industry or any anti-smoking group”¹⁹⁶ This statement was removed from his website in about 2010.¹⁹⁷

Writing in May 2012, Snowdon argued that the reason that this disclaimer had disappeared was it:

“was probably too defensive and unnecessary even then, but after I wrote The Spirit Level Delusion, The Art of Suppression and numerous articles and papers about alcohol, happiness economics, food, drugs and the rest, it looked downright weird. And so, although it was still true, I replaced it with a more conventional and extensive biography. Absence of denial is not evidence of guilt.”¹⁹⁸

Director of the IEA’s “Lifestyle Economics” Unit

In 2012, Snowdon joined the tobacco funded Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) as a Research Fellow.¹⁹⁹ The IEA accepts funding from tobacco companies. A year after joining the think tank, Snowdon became Director of the IEA’s new “Lifestyle Economics” unit. ^{200 201}
Also see:

• Preventing the Government-Funded Charity Sector Lobbying Government
• Institute of Economic Affairs

Undermining the WHO

In October 2018, Snowdon hosted a meeting of organisations with various tobacco industry links following the rejection of observer status of the International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organisations (INNCO) at the WHO’s eighth Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (COP8). See below for details.

Against Plain Packaging

In February 2012, shortly before the UK Department of Health launched its public consultation on plain packaging of tobacco products, the Adam Smith Institute published a report by Snowdon which opposed plain packaging. Echoing many of the Industry Arguments Against Plain Packaging, the report argued:

• “there is no solid evidence of its efficacy or unintended consequences”
• “the public does not believe that plain packaging will stop people smoking”
• “it is hard to think of a policy that could delight counterfeiters more than standardising the design, shape and colour of cigarette packs”
• “plain packaging is an infringement of intellectual property rights and a violation of international free trade agreements”
• “it limits information and restricts choice”.²⁰²

The title of the report portrayed critics of the tobacco industry as radicals: Plain Packaging: Commercial expression, anti-smoking extremism and the risks of hyper-regulation.
Interviewed about his report on the Hands Off Our Packs website, Snowdon said:

It is extraordinary that a government which claims to be against excessive regulation should be contemplating a law which even the provisional wing of the anti-smoking lobby considered unthinkable until very recently. It seems that fanaticism has become institutionalised and a handful of extremists have become the de facto policy makers in matters related to tobacco.²⁰³

Image 1: Institute of Economic Affair’s Christopher Snowdon reacts to the plain packaging announcement on 21 January 2015

In January 2015, the UK Government announced that it would vote on draft regulations for plain packaging before the May 2015 General Election. Snowdon appeared in the media the next day in opposition of the policy. He appeared on Five Live Breakfast and the Today programme on Radio 4.²⁰⁴ He also published a self-penned article in The Telegraph²⁰⁵, and his opinion statement (see image) published on the IEA’s website on the evening of the vote was cited in numerous press articles.^206207208 In his statement, Snowdon advertised that he was available for media comment.

IEA’s Tobacco Industry Funding Not Declared

In The Telegraph, Snowdon repeated the industry arguments that plain packaging in Australia has failed to work and that illicit trade has increased dramatically: “there has been a sharp increase in contraband tobacco in Australia since plain packaging was introduced.”²⁰⁵ Nowhere in the article does is disclose that Christopher Snowdon worked for the IEA or that the IEA accepts tobacco industry funds, neither does the IEA state this anywhere on its website.²⁰⁹ Independent evidence does not support Snowdon’s statement of an increase in illicit trade in Australia. See Countering Industry Arguments Against Plain Packaging: It will Lead to Increased Smuggling.

Food and Obesity

IEA Funding Source is “Irrelevant”

In August 2014, the IEA released a report on obesity written by Snowdon, entitled The Fat Lie. ²¹⁰ In a Channel 4 News interview about the report, Snowdon was pressed about the IEA’s funding and whether the think-tank received food industry money, however Snowdon said he did not know. He then added that it was “irrelevant” whether the IEA was taking food industry money or not.²¹¹

Report Dismissed as “Laughable Nonsense”

The obesity report was dismissed as “laughable nonsense which flies in the face of 50 years of science,” by nutrition expert, Dr Aseem Malhotra, a cardiologist from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, as well “completely wrong” by Professor Mike Lean, Chair of Human Nutrition at the University of Glasgow.²¹¹

Against the Soft Drinks Industry Levy

Snowdon is a prominent opponent of the UK Soft Drink Industry Levy (SDIL), a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages set to take effect in the UK in April 2018. The revenues from the levy are earmarked for school breakfast clubs and school sports activities to help fight childhood obesity.²¹²

“People Against the Sugar Tax”

Snowdon is a former Executive Board member of the so-called “grassroots campaign” against the SDIL, People Against Sugar Tax alongside amongst others Alex Deane, and Annunziata Rees-Mogg, the sister of Conservative politician, Jacob Rees-Mogg. ^{213 214}

The IEA and Sugar

In March 2016, the Sun Online portrayed Snowdon, who has a history degree, as an “expert” on sugar.²¹⁵
Snowdon has also opposed the levy in briefing papers and reports for the Institute of Economic Affairs, and has described the policy as an “eye-catching but ill-considered gimmick”.^216217218
The IEA labelled the UK as “the biggest nanny state in the EU” due to the SDIL.²¹⁵

IEA Refuses To Disclose Whether it Receives Food and Drink Money

The IEA refuses to disclose whether it receives funding from the food and soft drinks industry.²¹⁹

IEA’s Past Funding from the Food and Drinks Industry

A letter to the IEA’s supporters suggests that it has received donations from a range of food and soft drinks companies such as Coca-Cola, Tesco, Unilever, and Tate & Lyle, amongst others, in the past.²²⁰

Spectator Columns on Sugar

Snowdon has also written numerous opinion pieces opposing a sugar tax for Spectator Health ^221222223

Velvet Glove Articles on Sugar

Snowdon has also written on the sugar tax on his blog, Velvet Glove Velvet Glove, Iron Fist. Some examples include:

• “The case against the Case Against Sugar” ²²⁴
• “A world of pure imagination” ²²⁵
• “Glantz’s sugar conspiracy”²²⁶
• “A sugar tax is just the start” ²²⁷

Denigrates Public Health Scientists

Like other pro-smoking bloggers, such as Simon Clark and Martin Cullip, Snowdon has publically criticised leading tobacco control scientists by referring to them as “zealots”²²⁸ and “extremists”.²²⁹
Snowdon has attempted to undermine the credibility of leading tobacco control scientists:

• Professor Simon Chapman

Simon Chapman is a Professor of Public Health at the University of Sydney, who has published over 480 articles in peer reviewed journals.²³⁰ Snowdon describes him as a “scrotum-faced head-banger” who “freely promotes junk science”; a “gadfly”, who “does not even seem to display much more scientific expertise on tobacco, the subject he has been working on for decades … He also has an unfortunate habit of listening to the voices in his head and then repeating their words out loud (or on Twitter).”²²⁸

• Professor Linda Bauld

Linda Bauld is a Professor of Socio-Management at the University of Stirling, who has published 40 peer-reviewed articles as well as six books. Snowdon writes: “One of the bits of voodoo science upon which the anti-smoking extremists are pinning their hopes vis a vis plain packaging came from the pen of Linda Bauld. You may recall Bauld as the fantasist who insists that the smoking ban did no harm to England’s pubs.”²³¹

• Professor Stan Glantz

Professor Stan Glantz has been a leading anti-smoking academic since the late seventies and is currently a Professor at the Department of Medicine; and the Director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California.²³²
Snowdon has stated that Glantz is a “raving lunatic”, arguing that “I have always feared for Stanton Glantz’s mental health, but it’s only since he started blogging that I’ve realised that the guy is genuinely certifiable.²³³ He also labels Glantz a “Gobshite” who is “deranged” and a “clueless clown”.²³⁴²³⁵

• Professor Anna Gilmore

Another scientist who Snowdon has criticised is Professor Anna Gilmore, Director of the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath, who has published some 70 articles in peer reviewed journals. He says she is a “professor of no fixed ability”, who produces “fairy-tale science” and “Junk science”. “Or is this just more proof of Anna Gilmore’s estrangement from reality? It’s almost as if she’s being sponsored to go around getting things wrong on as many different subjects as she can.”²³⁶²³⁷

Attacks Public Health Activists

Snowdon has called the Chief Executive of the Charity Action for Smoking and Health, Deborah Arnott, a “chronically deluded neo-prohibitionist.”²³⁸

Attendance at COP8

In 2018, the International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organisations (INNCO) was denied observer status at the WHO’s eighth Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (COP8). INNCO members then participated in a side meeting hosted by Snowdon.²³⁹ Other attendees included Martin Cullip; Heneage Mitchell of Factasia.org, a group that claims to represent consumers of nicotine products, but receives funding from Philip Morris International (PMI) and Simon Clark the Director of the tobacco industry front group Forest.

• For more details see the page on INNCO.

Links to Other Pro-Smoking Organisations / Attending Tobacco Industry Events

Snowdon has supported pro-smoking organisations, some of whom receive tobacco industry funding, by writing for:

• Hands Off Our Packs²⁴⁰
• Spiked²⁴¹
• The Free Society²⁴²
• Adam Smith Institute²⁴³

He is also affiliated with other pro-smoking and libertarian organisations and think tanks too. He is an ‘Adjunct Scholar’ at the Democracy Institute.²⁴⁴ On 27 February 2012, Snowdon spoke at the launch of Forest‘s tobacco industry funded Hands Off Our Packs campaign against the plain packaging of tobacco products.²⁴⁵

Snowdon has been a regular speaker at the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum, an annual tobacco industry event previously known as the Global Tobacco Networking Forum.²⁴⁶²⁴⁷ For more information, see the following pages:

• Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum 2019
• Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum 2018
• Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum 2016
• Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum 2015
• Global Tobacco Networking Forum 2013
• Global Tobacco Networking Forum 2012
• Global Tobacco Networking Forum 2010

Snowdon was invited to speak at an event organised by The Free Society and Privacy International in June 2011, entitled “Civil Liberties Up in Smoke – What are smokers’ rights in a free society?” Other speakers included:

• Mark Littlewood, from the Institute of Economic Affairs;
• Peter Hitchens, from the Mail on Sunday;
• Simon Davies, Privacy International;
• Dan Hamilton, then Big Brother Watch;
• Ronald Harwood²⁴⁸

Publications

He is the author of several books which focus on “pleasure, prohibition and dodgy statistics”:¹⁹⁹

• Velvet Glove Iron Fist: A History of Anti-Smoking (Little Dice, 2009);
• The Spirit Level Delusion: Fact-checking the Left’s new theory of everything; and
• The Art of Suppression: Pleasure, Panic and Prohibition since 1800 (published October 2011).¹⁹⁷
• Selfishness, Greed and Capitalism: Debunking myths about the Free Market. (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2015)
• Killjoys: A Critique of Paternalism, (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2017)²⁴⁹

References

The post Christopher Snowdon appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

“ACS’ core purpose is to lobby Government on the issues that make a difference to local shops. We represent the interests of retailers on a range of issues, including business rates, energy, regulation, planning, alcohol and many more.”²⁵⁰

Relationship with the Tobacco Industry

Tobacco Companies are ACS Members

British American Tobacco (BAT), Imperial Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International (JTI) and Philip Morris Limited UK are “premier club” members of the ACS.²⁵¹
Premier club members “join ACS as a signal of their support for the industry and a number of exclusive events. Premier Club brings extensive benefits including, premium networking opportunities and insight into the convenience sector at all levels”.²⁵¹
In a January 2013 letter to the UK Department of Health, ACS’ CEO James Lowman declared that the tobacco companies each paid £23,550 for ACS premier club membership that year.²⁵²
In 2012 the tobacco companies had paid £22,860 each in membership fees.²⁵³

Japan Tobacco International Sponsored ACS Events

In addition to membership fees, Lowman’s letter revealed that JTI spent at least £10,000 on sponsoring the annual ACS Forecourt Seminar event, and had also sponsored the 2013 ACS Annual Conference.²⁵²

Lobbying Against Public Health Measures

The ACS has lobbied against several public health measures including, tobacco track and trace to combat tobacco smuggling^254255256, tobacco plain packaging²⁵⁷, a UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy and increase in cigarette excise²⁵⁸²⁵⁹, and measures imposed in the 2001 and 2014 European Union Tobacco Products Directive.²⁶⁰²⁶¹
Below are details of ACS opposition against the introduction of plain packaging in the UK.

Opposed UK Plain Packaging

In April 2012 the UK Department of Health launched a consultation on the plain packaging of tobacco products. ACS’ CEO Lowman released a press release in which he said: “We welcome the opportunity of this consultation to set out the reasons why plain packs will be a major burden to local shops across the UK.”²⁶³
In August the ACS submitted a response to the consultation.²⁵⁷ The submission argued that plain packaging would have a negative operational impact on retailers; that it would lengthen service times, would lead to a loss of retail margin, and had the potential to drive consumers away from the legitimate tobacco market into the illicit trade market (see image 1).²⁶²
Its arguments echoed tobacco industry arguments against plain packaging.
The ACS made no fewer than nine recommendations to the UK Government and the Department of Health, stating that it:

1. should adhere to the principles of better regulation when deciding on regulation so that unnecessary burden is not placed upon businesses;

2. should wait for an evaluation of plain packaging in Australia, the first country in the world to introduce this legislation;

3. should conduct a “detailed and reliable analysis of smokers’ response” to plain packaging;

4. should conduct a “consumer study on the likely impact of this policy on counterfeit tobacco products and cross-border sales”;

5. should give careful consideration to the impact plain packaging could have on making illicit trade more attractive, especially to young people and those in deprived communities;

6. should allow time to assess the efficacy of recently introduced tobacco control interventions before introducing further burdens on business;

7. should conduct a full study of the efficacy of all existing tobacco control measures before introducing others;

8. should publish findings of on-going research in a timely manner to allow further consultation with stakeholders;

9. should commission research into the business impact of plain packaging.

British American Tobacco quotes ACS in its Submission

BAT’s submission to the 2012 consultation cited ACS’ concerns, but did not disclose that the tobacco company paid membership fees to the ACS.
On page 51 of BAT’s submission, the company quoted the ACS:
“We also fear that consumers that are used to buying certain brands will react against plain packs and seek them out from the illegal trade. The result would be more consumers placed at the mercy of unscrupulous criminals that run the black market and further loss of trade for legitimate retailers.”²⁶⁴

PMI identified the ACS as an ‘Influencer’

Documents authored by PMI, leaked in mid-2013, revealed that the tobacco company had planned a multi-faceted campaign to oppose the UK government’s plans to introduce plain packaging.²⁶⁵²⁶⁶
In the leaked presentations, PMI identified all those whom it considered to be major players in the UK legislative decision-making process.
PMI named “key committees” such as the Cabinet Office Behavioural Insight Unit, the Regulatory Policy Committee and the Government’s Department for Business Innovation & Skills (BIS) Reducing Regulation Committee (p15) which, among other things, strives to reduce the burden of regulation in accordance with the principles of Better Regulation.
PMI also detailed a model centred around UK Prime Minister David Cameron, the “decision maker” (see Image 2). Cameron, depicted at the epicentre, is surrounded by nine “formal/informal advisors” who in turn were surrounded by a large number of “influencers” including MPs, Lords, Government departments and a series of non-governmental organisations, charities and lobby groups. Included amongst the lobby groups identified by PMI as influencers was the ACS.
For more information, see pages on PMI’s Anti-Plain Packaging Lobbying Campaign and PMI’s Anti-PP Media Campaign.

ACS Vocal Against Plain Packaging in Second UK Consultation

On 26 June 2014 the UK Government published its second consultation on plain packaging.
Later that day, Lowman (CEO of ACS) stated “Ministers have consistently failed to accept the evidence about how disruptive and burdensome recent tobacco control measures have been for the tens of thousands of retailers that have to actually implement them”.²⁶⁷
This serves as another example of the ACS representing themselves as an independent organisation communicating on behalf of the UK’s retailers without disclosing their links to the tobacco industry.

Opposed tobacco endgame 

The ACS has lobbied against proposed tobacco endgame policies in the UK.²⁶⁸ For details see Tobacco Industry Interference with Endgame Policies. 

Affiliations

The ACS provides the Secretariat for the All Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group.²⁶⁹²⁷⁰

TobaccoTactics Resources

• British American Tobacco
• Imperial Tobacco
• Philip Morris
• Japan Tobacco International
• Third Party Techniques
• Plain Packaging in the UK
• PMI’s Anti-Plain Packaging Lobbying Campaign
• Industry Arguments Against Plain Packaging
• Countering Industry Arguments against Plain Packaging
• EU Tobacco Products Directive Revision
• Industry Interference and the 2001 EU Tobacco Products Directive
• All Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group

TCRG Research

• Evidence on Plain Packaging

References

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