Smoking: Protecting health policy from
the influence of the tobacco industry
The tobacco industry has a long history of working to subvert or delay health
policy. Now public health has shifted to local government councils need to be
even more vigilant regarding tobacco industry influence locally:
• The tobacco industry engages local authorities to advance commercial interests
• There is an international treaty which protects health policy from these interests
and it applies to local government
• A strong local policy on industry engagement can protect local health policy
The tobacco industry has attempted to
engage with local government to shape
the policy process in favour of smoking.
They have used a range of techniques
to get a foot in the door of local
authorities in an attempt to influence
health policy through:
• Shaping the national agenda
through local decision
makers
• Encouraging public health
resources to be spent on less
effective approaches
• Undermining a council’s
smokefree policies
Imperial Tobacco sponsored shelters on
council property - part of their ‘smoking
allowed’ campaign.
The tobacco industry has already engaged with councils in England:
•
Providing funding for city academies
•
Sponsoring theatres, libraries and museums
•
Seeking to engage local authorities in discussions on harm reduction
•
Seeking to influence local authority activity on illicit tobacco by providing sniffer dogs.
Bogus industry claims
Increasingly, tobacco firms have employed false economic
arguments to make the case against policies to reduce smoking.
Industry claims:
1. Smokefree legislation and other measures ruin small
businesses and destroy jobs
2. Increasing tax leads to more illicit tobacco
3. Smoking prevention measures do not work
Time and again, these assertions have been shown to be deeply
flawed; but by repeating these ‘tobacconomic’ arguments
tobacco manufacturers seek to “throw sand in the gears” of
regulatory reform.
What councils can do
The Tobacco Control Plan for England directs local
authorities “to take necessary action to protect their
tobacco control strategies from vested interests.”
The UK is a signatory and local authorities are bound by
the commitments in the Framework Convention on
Tobacco Control (FCTC). This WHO Treaty includes a
range of commitments to comprehensive tobacco control.
Article 5.3 of the FCTC is a response to decades of
industry attempts to subvert public health policy. It states
that: “In setting and implementing their public health
policies with respect to tobacco control, Parties shall act to
protect these policies from commercial and other vested
interests of the tobacco industry”
Councils can recommit to the FCTC through signing the
Local Government Declaration on Tobacco control. To find
out more about the Declaration see here
http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/care-and-wellbeing/publichealth
A clear policy
The Local Government Declaration on Tobacco Control commits councils to developing and
implementing a local policy around engagement with the tobacco industry. It should include
commitments to:
• only to meet with the tobacco industry in so far as is necessary for its regulation;
• publish full details of any meetings between the tobacco industry and members or
officers;
• refuse any funding from the tobacco industry for public health or other council
work;
• refuse any partnerships with the tobacco industry in tackling illicit tobacco;
• refuse to participate in any tobacco industry “corporate social responsibility”
activity.
Many councils are concerned about local authority pension scheme investment in tobacco
shares. However there are many more pressing and less intractable problems which could
be addressed first.
The tobacco industry has demonstrated
that it cannot be trusted to have a role in
health policy. It has long been established
public health practice across the world to
protect health policy from their commercial
interests.
Local authorities also have a role to play
ensuring local policy is protected.
This brief is supported by separate
briefings on the following:
Smoking: cost
 Smoking: children
 Smoking: health inequalities
 Smoking: quitting
 Smoking: illicit tobacco
 ASH report: Tobacconomics

May 2014