The Alliance Against Tobacco denounces the “records of shame” of the tobacco industry during the 2024 Olympics

On the occasion of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the ACT-Alliance Against Tobacco is launching this Wednesday July 31 a vast campaign to raise awareness of the health, social and environmental harms of the tobacco industry's activities. Through a fictional character “Nick'O'tine”, who will represent the interests of tobacco companies on social networks, the media and in public space, the association intends to publicize the sad records of this deadly industry.

The campaign was revealed during an exclusive live on the Twitch channel of journalist Samuel Etienne on July 30 and will be deployed and amplified nationally until the start of the 2024 Paralympic Games.

The ACT campaign will take the form of posters in the metro or bus shelters in ten major French cities including the capital, but also on social networks (X, TikTok, Instagram) where the fictional character of Nick O'Tine will ironically attempt to defend the main tobacco companies (Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International and Seita-Imperial Brands) by inserting itself into the public debate around the Olympics.

The sad records held by the tobacco industry

The ACT recalls that tobacco consumption is the leading cause of preventable premature mortality, causing more than 8 million deaths annually worldwide, including 75,000 in France. Worldwide, it is estimated that nearly 1.25 billion people are addicted to tobacco. For the ACT and its members, smoking must be considered a pediatric epidemic. Indeed, 15.6% of 17-year-olds are daily smokers in France and the use of electronic cigarettes is clearly increasing among adolescents. Its daily use tripled between 2017 and 2022, from 1.9 % to 6.2 %, while experimentation increased from 52.4 % to 56.9 %, surpassing that of tobacco. The targeting of the tobacco industry, which concentrates its marketing activities on young people to ensure the renewal of its consumers, explains this data to a large extent.

The damage caused by tobacco is not only health-related. Tobacco is in fact mainly grown in low- and middle-income countries and child labor is endemic in this sector of activity. A report published in 2011 estimated that there were 1.3 million child laborers in tobacco fields under the age of 14 worldwide.[1].

Furthermore, the activities of the tobacco industry also massively harm the environment. Cigarette filters are the largest form of plastic waste in the world – 4.5 trillion are thrown into the environment each year. These filters, which are toxic and dangerous waste, pollute soils and waterways. Tobacco production is water intensive and current tobacco growing practices are unsustainable. Overexploitation of land for tobacco cultivation leads to permanent deforestation.

Likewise, new nicotine products, like electronic cigarettes, also contain batteries, heavy metals and other hazardous, non-biodegradable and environmentally harmful materials.

Finally, the ACT recalls that tobacco has a major cost for public finances. It costs the French State more than 1.6 billion euros and represents an annual social cost of 156 billion euros[2].

A call to demarket tobacco and nicotine products

To achieve the goal of a tobacco-free generation by 2032, the ACT and its members, in particular the National Committee Against Smoking (CNCT), advocate for a progressive demarketing of tobacco and nicotine products in banning the sale to people born from 2014. This measure was reintroduced by the new British government which plans to ban the sale of tobacco products to anyone born after January 2009.

For the CNCT, which published a white paper in 2023 to achieve a tobacco-free generation, this decommercialization also involves a review of the status and remuneration of tobacconists and much greater control of the activities of this industry.[3].

©Tobacco Free Generation

AE

[1] Generation without tobacco, World No Tobacco Day: The tobacco industry violates children's rights, published on May 24, 2024, consulted on July 31, 2024

[2] Communicated, Tobacco: a major cost for public finances, CNCT, published August 2, 2023

[3] Press release, The National Committee Against Smoking (CNCT) proposes strong measures to achieve a tobacco-free generation by 2032, published on May 2, 2023, consulted on July 31, 2024