Tobacco industry funds pro-vape associations in Latin America

An investigation by The Examination details how Philip Morris International, through its Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, funds a sprawling network of pro-vaping organizations in several Latin American countries to influence health policies and spread positive information about vaping and heated tobacco.

The investigation was conducted in collaboration with several media outlets in Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Bolivia. It shows how several associations, apparently independent, promoted vaping and heated tobacco devices during parliamentary debates, in articles on vaping news websites and on social media, without clearly disclosing their financial links to the tobacco industry.[1].

A similar investigation was carried out by Le Monde journalist Stéphane Horel in 2021, in collaboration with the Dutch newspaper the Investigative Desk. The investigation revealed alliances between the tobacco lobby, pro-vaping consumer groups and networks of American oil magnates to prevent regulation of new tobacco and nicotine products.[2].

A lobby deployed through the Foundation for a smoke-free world

The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World describes itself as an independent, nonprofit organization created and operated without the control or influence of any third party. It claims to provide grants and support medical, agricultural, and scientific research to end tobacco use and its health effects and to address the impact of reducing global demand for tobacco. Since its inception in 2017, Philip Morris International, the sole funder, has provided more than $400 million to the Foundation.

The Foundation, in turn, funds other nonprofit organizations and private companies, many of which conduct research on or promote vaping and other nicotine products such as heated tobacco — products in which Philip Morris has a substantial direct interest, with the company having invested more than $10 billion in these products over the past 15 years. These organizations and companies sometimes fund other organizations that do the same.

Latin America remains susceptible to tobacco industry interference

Latin America is a region where government vulnerability to tobacco industry interference is among the highest in the world, according to the results of the 2023 Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index. Scientific research has established that one of the ways the tobacco industry interferes with regulations is through third-party funding. A 2022 study published in the journal Tobacco Control[3], stressed that several countries in the region were lagging behind in implementing the measures contained in the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and this delay was attributed in particular to the strong industry lobby. Since then, efforts have been noted, particularly in the establishment of smoke-free areas. However, only four countries (Brazil, Colombia, Panama and Uruguay) are implementing and complying with Article 13 of the Convention on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. Only four countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia) have adopted a tax equivalent to 75% or more of the price on tobacco products, three countries (Brazil, El Salvador and Mexico) offer a real care offer to help people quit smoking and only Uruguay has so far positioned itself in favour of plain packaging for tobacco products. This commitment by Uruguay in the field of packaging which marked the 2010s is however no longer on the agenda and the country has given up on implementing plain packaging.^[4].

Despite this permeability, Latin America nevertheless stands out for its strict approach to new tobacco and nicotine products. Several Latin American countries prohibit or restrict the marketing and promotion of electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products through resolutions, decrees or laws.[5].

These increasingly restrictive measures against these products have led the tobacco industry to increase its pressure. The industry lobby is mainly carried out by the Ibero-American Association for the Reduction of Tobacco Risks (ARDT Iberoamérica), a non-profit organization that brings together a dozen pro-vaping groups in Latin America, many of which operate under the name Asovape.

The ARDT Iberoamérica website states that the group is made up of "citizen spokespeople." Knowledge-Action-Change (KAC) funded the site with funds from the Philip Morris Foundation.

KAC is a private company funded by the foundation that has awarded “grants” of up to tens of thousands of dollars to support projects related to smokeless nicotine products, according to The Examination. In total, the company has received more than $6.4 million from the foundation over the past six years. In addition to the grant programs, the company funds the creation of websites promoting the new products in developing countries. KAC has also received funding from Nicoventures, a subsidiary of British American Tobacco.

Relaxing regulations on new nicotine products

These organizations are lobbying policymakers in several countries in the Latin American region for more lenient regulations on these products. Francisco Javier Ordóñez, president of the Colombian Association of Vapers, known as Asovape Colombia, for example, spoke at a congressional hearing in Bogotá in 2023 to oppose the same restrictions on vaping products as cigarettes and proposed legislation that would impose new taxes on vaping products in Colombia. Mr. Ordóñez has received funding from Knowledge-Action-Change and did not disclose at the hearing that he had received industry-related payments. He said he was speaking on behalf of 400,000 Colombian smokers and that his sole motivation was to help people quit smoking.

Posts on Asovape Colombia’s Facebook page and online clips of Ordóñez show that Asovape Colombia has supported bills that would allow limited advertising on television and billboards for new nicotine products, as well as the use of vapes and heated tobacco in many indoor spaces where smoking is prohibited. In a 2021 Facebook video, Ordóñez also said he worked with Mauricio Andrés Toro Orjuela, a member of Colombia’s House of Representatives until 2022, to draft a bill on e-cigarettes and other nicotine products that would regulate them much more loosely than traditional tobacco products.

In a video posted on YouTube, Ordóñez explains that he received a grant from Knowledge-Action-Change to create an online academy on tobacco harm reduction. The academy is for anyone interested in learning more about tobacco harm reduction and “reduced-risk” nicotine products. The grant also allowed Ordóñez to compile scientific studies translated into Spanish for the ARDT Iberoamérica website.

Several Colombian lawmakers contacted by The Examination say that several bills currently under discussion to increase taxes on vaping products are being heavily lobbied by pro-vaping groups including Asovape Colombia. Colombian Senator Norma Hurtado Sánchez said that this heavy lobbying seems to be influencing her colleagues because today, it is much more common to hear members of Congress refer to vaping as a “harm reduction” tool, whereas just three years ago, “that was not the norm.”

Ordóñez hasn’t tried to influence legislation only in Colombia. In 2021, as president of ARDT Iberoamérica, he sent a letter to Laurentino Cortizo Cohen, the president of Panama, one of the countries with the lowest smoking rates in the world. In the letter, Ordóñez opposed a bill that would ban the sale of vaping and heated tobacco products. He said banning these products could create a black market that would put users at risk.

In 2020 in Costa Rica, Asovape Costa Rica president and current ARDT Iberoamerica president Jeffrey Zamora wrote a letter to lawmakers opposing a bill that would tax vaping products and ban their use in many public spaces. The group said it was exclusively concerned with the interests of consumers. A year later, Asovape Costa Rica wrote a letter about the same bill that downplayed the health risks of vaping. Now the social media manager for the International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organizations, or INNCO, a group that has received more than $1 million from the Smoke-Free World Foundation, Zamora spoke before a congressional committee against a bill that would require plain packaging for tobacco, heated tobacco, and vaping products in Costa Rica in August 2022.

Influencer campaigns on websites and social networks

These structures also organize themselves on social networks to disseminate publications and videos in favor of vaping. Asovape Colombia has disseminated advertisements promoted by the World Vapers Alliance, a group that emerged from an organization funded by British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International and Altria. These advertisements opposed the ban on the consumption of heated tobacco products and vaping in enclosed public spaces.

In a video posted in April 2023, Jessica Harding, Director of Public Relations at Knowledge-Action-Change, said: “ We can all see that the evidence shows that vaping helps smokers quit, that it does not create an epidemic among young people, that it does not encourage smoking, that flavors are essential, and that nicotine is safe. ".

The videos, which are billed as "informative," have been growing on social media in Latin America and are part of a series of documentaries funded in part by KAC's Tobacco Harm Reduction Scholarship Program and produced by Zamora.

KAC and INNCO also fund pro-vaping websites that have billed themselves as “independent press” and “truth-based journalism.” The Vaping Today website is funded by INNCO, and its Portuguese version is funded by KAC. Vaping Today promises its readers to counter misinformation in the mainstream media about nicotine products, which it describes as “the real danger to public health.” An analysis of articles published on the site by The Examination found that the content consistently amplifies research and viewpoints that portray e-cigarettes and other nicotine products in a positive light, while downplaying more critical information.

For example, the analysis found that about 10 % of all articles published between June 2020 and July 2023 state that vaping is 95 % less harmful than smoking—an estimate cited in an academic paper in England that the vaping industry has frequently repeated to support its positions. Public health experts have widely criticized this estimate, and even the authors of the paper in question have said the calculation may be “simplistic and misinterpreted.” Vaping Today not only promotes vaping products, but also heated tobacco devices, stating that studies have confirmed that heated tobacco products are less toxic than cigarettes. In reality, no independent studies support the supposed reduced harm of heated tobacco.

Vaping Post editor-in-chief José Claudio Teixeira is the coordinator of another pro-vape group called THR Brasil. Teixeira has also received three grants from Knowledge-Action-Change. According to an archived page on the Knowledge-Action-Change website, one of those grants allowed Teixeira to prepare a “basic text” for e-cigarette regulation in Brazil. The site does not specify the amount of the grant he may have received.

At the Conference of the Parties (COP10 of the WHO Framework Convention) held in Panama from 5 to 10 February, the tobacco industry and its third parties were particularly active in blocking decisions.

The British media outlet The Guardian revealed last October that the cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris International (PMI) was leading a vast lobbying campaign to prevent the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention from implementing protective measures regarding new tobacco and nicotine products (heated tobacco and vaping products) at this meeting.

Keywords: Lobby, interference, vaping, third parties, tobacco industry, Philip Morris, Smoke-Free Foundation, Latin America, COP10

©Generation Without Tobacco

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[1] Maria Perez, In battle over e-cigarettes in Latin America, tobacco money quietly at play, The Examination, published January 16, 2024, accessed January 23, 2024

[2] Tobacco-free generation, The tobacco lobby disguised as a citizens' movement to promote its interests, published on November 8, 2021, consulted on January 23, 2024

[3] Sandoval RC, Bacelar Gomes A, Roche M, Parra N, Armada F. Advances in Tobacco Control in the Region of the Americas, 2020. Rev Panam Salud Publica. 2022;46:e202.

[4] Tobacco-free generation, Under pressure from industry, Uruguay abandons plain packaging, published on December 19, 2022, consulted on January 23, 2024

[5] Tobacco-free generation, Panama bans sale of heated tobacco and vaping products, published on July 11, 2022, consulted on January 23, 2024