The World Health Organization's World No Tobacco Day 2020 Campaign Exposes Tobacco and Related Industry Tactics to Manipulate Children and Young People and Hook a New Generation of Users

Abstract

There are 1.3 billion tobacco users worldwide. That number might be even larger if tobacco did not kill half of its users [1]. Every 4 seconds, tobacco is responsible for another premature death [2]. For decades, the tobacco industry has deliberately used aggressive, duplicitous, and well-resourced tactics to hook generations of users to nicotine and tobacco, driving the global tobacco epidemic. This is primarily achieved through engineering and manipulating of products to sustain addiction, with young people being the main target. The strategy is to replace smokers and ensure market sustainability by making the products appealing and attractive to new and existing users, especially youth. In 1984, R.J. Reynolds stated, "younger adult smokers are the only source of replacement smokers. If younger adults turn away from smoking, the industry must decline" [3]. Such strategies to engage children and adolescents before they are fully aware of the ramifications of their actions have been successfully used by the industry since the 1970s and are still in use today.Over the last decade, as the awareness of the harms of tobacco use has grown and global tobacco control efforts have intensified, the social acceptability of tobacco use has declined, directly impacting the sale of the most popular productdthe cigarette. To maintain its profitability, the multi-billion-dollar industry has aggressively started to look for newer markets in low-and middle-income countries and also come up with

Prevalence and correlates of current tobacco use and non-user susceptibility to using tobacco products among school-going adolescents in 22 African countries: a secondary analysis of the 2013-2018 global youth tobacco surveys

“…Our finding may be attributed to the increased market influence of the tobacco industry in many African countries [ 48 ]. Such penetration has been attributed to weak legislation on tobacco promotion, less enforcement of existing law, low taxes on tobacco products, and innovative ways by the tobacco industry to reach young people [ 49 – 51 ]. Some of the innovative ways young people have been reached include the use of school programmes and youth camps, provision of scholarships and the use of social media influencers as brand ambassadors [ 50 , 52 ].…”

Prevalence and Correlates of Current Tobacco use and Non-user Susceptibility to using Tobacco Product Among School-going Adolescents in 22 African Countries, 2013-2018

“…Our nding may be attributed to the increased market in uence of the tobacco industry in many African countries(48). Such penetration has been attributed to weak legislation on tobacco promotion, less enforcement of existing law, low taxes on tobacco products, and innovative ways by the tobacco industry to reach young people (49)(50)(51). Some of the innovative ways young people have been reached include the use of School programmes and youth camps, provision of scholarships and the use of social media in uencers as brand ambassadors (50,52).…”

Burden of cardiometabolic risk factors and preclinical target organ damage among adults in Freetown, Sierra Leone: a community-based health-screening survey

“…ii. A participant who smoked more than 100 sticks of cigarettes in his or her lifetime and still smoking at the interview was referred a smoker, while an ex-smoker was someone who had stopped smoking at least 28 days before the interview [29].…”