Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Yadav, Amit
• Glantz, Stanton A.

Titel

Tobacco industry thwarts ad ban legislation in India in the 1990s: Lessons for meeting FCTC obligations under Articles 13 and 5.3

Ist Teil von

• Addictive behaviors, 2022-07, Vol.130, p.107306-107306, Article 107306

Ort / Verlag

England: Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2022

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Elsevier ScienceDirect Journals Complete

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• •The 1975 Indian Cigarette Act required a small health warning.•Multinational companies created the Tobacco Institute of India to block laws.•Industry delayed tobacco control legislation from 1994 until 2003.•They managed the political fight in India as part of a global strategy.•These industry strategies continued in 2021. Bans on tobacco advertising are important for reducing tobacco-caused disease. Previously secret internal tobacco industry documents and organizational and newspaper websites related to tobacco control efforts in India during 1990s were analyzed. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, World Health Organization, Indian Council of Medical Research, and civil society played important roles in pushing for tobacco control legislation beginning in the 1980s. Guided by transnational tobacco companies, especially British American Tobacco, Philip Morris International, and RJ Reynolds, Indian cigarette companies formed the Tobacco Institute of India (TII). Following the industry’s global strategy, TII proposed voluntary advertising codes, used diplomatic channels and high level political and judicial lobbying, and allied with other industry, sports and trade groups to delay legislation for ten years. TII argued for the social and economic importance of tobacco and that laws were unnecessary, unconstitutional, and would hurt the economy. These early global strategies were continuing in 2022 to delay and evade legislative efforts to ban tobacco advertising. Understanding these strategies can inform public health efforts to counter industry efforts to thwart the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2022 not only in India, where the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has proposed strengthening India’s tobacco control law, but globally.