Alliance Against Tobacco Launches “Red Card to the Tobacco Industry” Campaign

With the Rugby World Cup in full swing, the Alliance Against Tobacco (ACT) is calling on the government to extend the smoking ban to all sporting events, and more generally to keep tobacco out of the world of sport.

While Belgium has banned smoking in stadiums since October 2020 and that the Netherlands is generalizing smoke-free areas, in France, alone some stadiums currently prohibit smoking within their premises.

To raise awareness that tobacco and sport are incompatible, the Alliance Against Tobacco (ACT) is taking the opportunity of the 2023 Rugby World Cup to launch its “Red Card to the Tobacco Industry” campaign.[1].

Incompatibility of tobacco and sport

This campaign is based on three arguments:

• First of all, remember that tobacco and sport are incompatible. Smoking tobacco significantly reduces oxygen intake and is harmful to the health of all athletes. The preconceived idea that sport allows you to eliminate tobacco toxins is not based on no foundation. In addition, smoking in a sports venue exposes players, spectators and staff to passive smoking.
• Smoking in public is renormalising smoking, particularly among children and teenagers, which has been declining for several decades. The ACT reports that 70,000 of the 600,000 spectators who bought tickets for the Rugby World Cup come to watch the competitions with their families.
• Smoking in a sports venue is contrary to the preservation of the environment, whether through the abandonment of cigarette butts and other waste, through the emission of toxic smoke or as a fire risk factor.

Coldness of certain sports federations

Supported by many sports stakeholders, associations and local authorities, the ACT campaign did not meet with the expected response in certain sports federations. The French Rugby Federation (FFR) and the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF) have declared their agreement with this campaign, but have refused to support it. With France in the spotlight of global sports news by also hosting the next Olympic Games in 2024, the ACT is asking the government to extend the smoking ban to all sporting events.

Sport, the tobacco industry's preferred means of promotion

The tobacco industry itself has long used sport as a means of communication. Many sporting competitions have been or still are supported by the tobacco industry, particularly those of motor sports, tennis and baseball[2]. Sponsorship of these events has been used in particular for the promotion of cigarettes and is now being exploited for other tobacco and nicotine products. Under the guise of corporate social responsibility (CSR), the funding of more local sporting activities, such as that of cricket competitions in India by British American Tobacco or in the United Kingdom by Imperial[3], also allows tobacco manufacturers to present themselves as responsible, civic-minded actors and to erase their image as manufacturers of addictive and deadly products.

In the process of converting to nicotine products, the tobacco industry is now rekindling the belief that nicotine can be a factor in sports performance, a sort of "legal doping", whereas it is mainly a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. In this way, the tobacco industry wants to promote its smokeless products presented as "alternatives" to smoked tobacco, whether they are tobacco pouches (snus) or of nicotine pouches (pouches). The echo given to the use of these products in the ski and soccer evidence of promotional practices. Concerned about the spread of snus consumption among its members, the English Professional Footballers' Association has just launched an evaluation study on this subject, in association with Loughborough University[4].

Keywords: Alliance against tobacco, ACT, Red card, sport, Rugby World Cup.

©Tobacco Free Generation

M.F.

[1] “Red Card to the Tobacco Industry” Campaign, ACT, published September 21, 2023, accessed September 22, 2023.

[2] Proctor R, Golden Holocaust, The Tobacco Industry Conspiracy, Paris, Ed. Equateurs, 2014.