International Tobacco Industry Research Articles

A multi-country analysis of transnational tobacco companies' market share.

The international tobacco market is dominated by five transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) which continue to interfere with measures to reduce tobacco consumption. The aim of this study is to better understand the current international tobacco industry market structure by providing an overview of the market share of these five companies globally. A longitudinal multi-country study design was used to understand market share trends across 90 different countries from 2011 to 2020. Descriptive analyses were conducted based on market share and market size data obtained from Euromonitor Passport. Market share (%), maximal market share (%) and cumulative market share (%) were calculated. Maps and boxplots are used to present the descriptive analyses. Median cumulative TTC market share and interquartile ranges for each year were calculated and stratified by country income level. The average maximal market share of one company in a country was 50% (IQR: 40.0-63.5) in 2020 compared to 51.5% in 2011 (IQR: 41.3-69.0). One of the five TTCs had the highest market share in 77 out of the 90 countries. Philip Morris International was the main market player in 38 countries, followed by British American Tobacco (24), Japan Tobacco International (8), Imperial Brands (6), and lastly China National Tobacco Corporation was only dominant in China. The percentage of cigarettes manufactured by one of the five TTCs remained relatively stable between 2011 (86.4%) and 2020 (85.2%). Average cumulative TTC market shares increased between 2011 and 2020 in both low- and middle-, and high-income countries. The international tobacco market is concentrated with a small number of large players, and this has not changed substantially between 2011 and 2020. The impact of this on the ability of the tobacco industry to resist policy changes is unknown but presents a cause for concern.

ED03.02 The Australian Tobacco Control Strategy: Lessons Learned

This presentation will outline the developments that have led the international tobacco industry to describe Australia as “the darkest market in the world.” This will be presented in the context of international developments, with implications and recommendations for other countries, and researchers, clinicians, health professionals, health organizations and governments There will be discussion of the origins and early history of tobacco control in Australia; the components of comprehensive tobacco control programs; policy-relevant research; successes, failures and distractions; and the roles of key organizations and individuals. This will be followed by an outline of major developments, including the establishment of a consensus approach; national and local approaches; activity by key groups; progress across a range of key areas including public education, advocacy, tobacco advertising bans, taxation, health warnings, smoke-free, exposing tobacco industry activities, cessation supports; and other measures. There will be discussion of the Australian world-leading tobacco plain packaging legislation, which is now being replicated in many other countries, and the very encouraging resultant trends. The Australian experience and successes will be presented in a global context, with recognition that the tobacco industry will always oppose any measures that might reduce smoking and is constantly looking for new ways to resist action and promote its products. From this conclusions will be drawn and recommendations made for all concerned to reduce smoking, with consideration of next possible developments. Plain packaging, the world's darkest market, Tobacco Control, advocacy

Understanding Smoking Behaviour among Secondary School Students in Amman, Jordan: A Qualitative Study

Background: Tobacco smoking is the most preventable cause of death in many countries. Globally, it accounts for 4.9 million deaths per annum, 70% of which occur in developing countries. With the growing economic development of countries in the ‘East’ and ‘South’, the international tobacco industry has been shifting its marketing towards these areas. Evidence shows that the majority of the smokers start smoking as early as high school level and the number of young smokers is increasing rapidly, which is a concern. In Jordan, smoking has reached alarming proportions, but as yet limited data is available about young Jordanians’ smoking behaviour. This research is an attempt to bridge the gap. Methods: A qualitative study was conducted on secondary school students of Amman, the capital of Jordan in 2010. The participants of the study were 16-18 year-old students of public and private schools in eastern and western suburbs of Amman, who were recruited using stratified random sampling. Five focus group discussions (FGDs), two for males and three for females with six participants per group were conducted. The FGDs used open-ended questions to focus discussion on four broad areas: smoking behaviour, reasons and place of smoking, accessibility of tobacco products, and quitting smoking. Results: The results show that 40% of students were current smokers, and that 66.7% of these were males. The age at which they started the habit was as early as 11 among males and 16 among females. Family environment was found to be positively associated with participants’ smoking behaviour. Hookah smoking was considered socially acceptable in some families, with the perception that it was less harmful than cigarettes. Females tended to smoke alone within contained/secret places, whereas males were more likely to smoke in a group environment on the street or near where they lived. ‘Stress’ was the main reason for participants to start and/or continue smoking, followed by ‘peer pressure’, ‘belonging’ and ‘being cool’. Other factors such as easy accessibility, availability and money issues also played an important part in their smoking. The health risks and consequences of smoking were underestimated by the students, and they expressed no interest in quitting or taking familial advice against smoking seriously. Fear that their fathers might learn of their habit and the possible consequences thereof, i.e., ‘harsh punishment’, was a prime factor for students not to smoke. Despite legislation, students were able to obtain tobacco products easily. The school environment was an important predictor of students’ smoking as teachers smoked within the school vicinity, even in the lass, and the school curriculum did not tackle the issue of tobacco appropriately. Conclusion: Certain measures taken to control youth smoking have not been effective due to lack of understanding of how young people perceive smoking and hence act. This paper sheds some light on 16-18 years old students’ smoking behaviour, factors that encourage their smoking and areas where attention is needed to prevent youth smoking.

Expansión de la industria tabacalera y contrabando: retos para la salud pública en los países en desarrollo

The international tobacco industry, in its constant quest for new markets, has expanded aggressively to middle- and low-income nations. At the same time there has been a marked increase in tobacco smuggling, especially of cigarettes. Smuggling produces serious fiscal losses to governments the world over, erodes tobacco control policies and is an incentive to international organized crime. In addition, smuggling results in increased demand for and consumption of tobacco, which in turn benefits the tobacco companies. Moreover, there is evidence indicating that the international tobacco industry has instigated cigarette smuggling and has participated directly in these activities, while at the same time carrying out costly lobbying campaigns to pressure governments against tax increases and to promote their own interests. Academic studies and empirical evidence show that tobacco control can be promoted through high tax rates without causing significant increases in smuggling. To achieve this tobacco smuggling must be attacked through the use of strategies including multilateral controls and actions such as those included in the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which establishes the basis for combating smuggling through an international, global approach. It is also necessary to increase the penalties for smuggling and to make the tobacco industry, including producers and distributors, responsible for the final destination of their exports.

Environmental tobacco smoke research published in the journal Indoor and Built Environment and associations with the tobacco industry

In the late 1980s, the international tobacco industry assisted in the establishment of the International Society of the Built Environment, which published the journal Indoor and Built Environment. Using evidence from tobacco industry documents, we examine the industry associations of the Society's executive, the journal's editor and board, and the extent to which the journal publishes papers on environmental tobacco smoke that would be deemed favourable by the tobacco industry. The society's executive has been dominated by paid consultants to the tobacco industry: all six members in 1992 and seven of eight members in 2002 had financial associations through industry lawyers. 67% of the editorial board in 1992 and 66% in 2002 had histories of financial associations with the tobacco industry. 61% (40/66) of papers related to environmental tobacco smoke published in Indoor and Built Environment in the study period reached conclusions that could be judged to be industry-positive. Of these, 90% (36/40) had at least one author with a history of association with the tobacco industry. The executive of the International Society of the Built Environment and the editorial board of Indoor and Built Environment are in large part consisted of people with histories of consultancies to the tobacco industry. On the basis of the evidence presented in this paper, there is a serious concern the tobacco industry may have been unduly influential on the content of the journal.

Denying nicotine's addiction potential: comments on Frenk & Dar

Sir—In 1963, Addison Yeaman, general counsel to the US British American Tobacco subsidiary Brown & Williamson, wrote a memo to his colleagues stating: ‘Moreover, nicotine is addictive. We are, then, in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug . . .’ (Yeaman 1963) Seventeen years later, Paul Knopick from the United States Tobacco Institute put the implications of this very plainly for his industry: ‘Shook, Hardy and Bacon [tobacco industry lawyers] reminds us, I'm told, that the entire matter of addiction is the most potent weapon a prosecuting attorney can have in a lung cancer/cigarette case. We can't defend continued smoking as “free choice” if the person was “addicted”’ (Knopick 1980). Accordingly, in the years since, the international tobacco industry has given high priority to an international effort to deny publicly that nicotine is addictive. It has bank-rolled and stacked the attendance lists of apparently independent scientific pharmacological conferences with ‘industry positive’ scientists (Francis 1986) to lend them the ‘deep fragrance of academia’ (Roe 1987). Before finally admitting in 1999 under the weight of hundreds of embarrassing internal documents that nicotine was indeed addictive (Philip Morris 2001), it fought for well over a decade to prevent the inclusion of ‘addiction’ on pack warnings. Against this background, what are we to make of Frenk & Dar's account (Frenk & Dar 2002) of being commissioned by a mysterious, unnamed research benefactor to review the literature on nicotine addiction, their subsequent decision to not declare this in their book and their final resort to a ‘people in glass houses’ defence of their coyness? Thanks to the revelations contained in internal tobacco industry documents, we now know a great deal about the way the tobacco industry has selected, vetted and then often ‘managed’ ostensibly independent scientists to produce work that fits its strategic objectives (Wood 1992). As Addiction's editor asks (Edwards et al. 2002), why did the tobacco industry's lawyers select these two—who remind us that they had no research experience in nicotine studies? A 1988 report of an industry meeting on recruitment strategy notes that ‘consultants should, ideally, be scientists who have no previous association with tobacco companies and who have no previous record on the primary issues’. The memo explains how potential consultants are sounded out by tobacco industry lawyers and, if suitable, then commissioned (Chapman 1997). Once a scientist crosses over to the tobacco industry, the cheques can just keep coming. With regard to a British professor, the memo explains that the British Tobacco Advisory Council ‘should continue to support him because it could be problematic to withdraw support from a scientist who has been sympathetic to the industry’ (Chapman 1997). In Australia in 1998, the tobacco industry engaged Dale Atrens from my own university to run similar arguments against a legal claim by a smoker to recover the costs outlaid by her to try to stop smoking (National Dispute Centre 1998). Atrens, once a member of the tobacco industry supported ARISE (Associates for Research into the Science of Enjoyment) was paid ‘about $A10,000’ (Ragg 2000) and has subsequently published a lengthy review reiterating his arguments that nicotine is not addictive—and like Frenk & Dar, also without acknowledgement of his history of industry support (Atrens 2001). One is left with the indelible impression that Frenk & Dar are either disingenuous or profoundly naïve. They ask us to consider that their account of being commissioned by an anonymous third party to re-examine a politically and legally white-hot topic was so unremarkable that the propriety of declaring this upfront was not an issue to them. While they are of course correct to point out double standards, their evasive argument is that this whole business is merely hypocritical and that the only question worth debating is the quality of their review. But their scientific sanctimony fits comfortably with an ongoing industry strategy: for as long as a scientific ‘debate’ can be said to exist, the tobacco industry can argue that policies to inform and warn smokers or regulate nicotine are premature. With the sort of debate they invite destined to be tucked away in the pages of publicly inaccessible low-circulation specialist journals, accounts of the to and fro will be left to tobacco industry spin-doctors and the occasional investigative journalist. Significantly, despite the industry admission about addiction deep in the fine print of websites, few nations today require an ‘addiction’ pack warning.

Importance of tobacco to a country's economy: an appraisal of the tobacco industry's economic argument

In the face of mounting evidence on the health hazards of its products, the international tobacco industry has placed increasing reliance on emphasising the importance of tobacco to a country's economy. Employing a wide variety of techniques,1 the intent of the industry is to persuade policy makers (heads of state, mini sters of trade and agriculture, legislators) to encourage expansion or development of tobacco industry activity or, at a minimum, to avoid adopting policy measures that would discourage tobacco product consumption. Dis regarding tobacco's physical health effects, the industry argues that tobacco is vital to the fiscal health of a country. One industry technique has involved hiring consulting firms to estimate the contribution of tobacco to a country's economy.2 Then the industry presents decision makers with im pressive-looking figures on the numbers of jobs dependent on tobacco, the income they produce, and the tax revenues that are gener ated through sales of tobacco products. The industry's estimates, however, grossly overstate and inaccurately reflect the economic importance of tobacco. The analyses from which these estimates derive fail to consider

Global overview of the tobacco problem

This topic may seem extraordinarily complicated. However, in practice, it can be reduced to a few essentials. In most respects the problem can be subdivided into two relatively simple, almost invariably opposing, points of view. First, the interests of the tobacco industry: market expansion; creation of new markets; and establishment or maintenance of the major weapon for achieving these two objectives, i.e. tobacco promotion, both direct and indirect. Second, the interests of public health: these require the shrinkage of established markets; resistance to the invasion by the international tobacco industry of new markets; and eradication of the tobacco industry’s major weapon, i.e. tobacco promotion. At a global level these opposing interests are, on the one hand, the international commercial companies which make up the so called TTCs, i.e. the seven major tobacco companies. The opposing interests are the public health oriented international bodies such as WHO, UICC, IUATLD and other non government agencies. The economic aspects of the problem. Again, the worldwide tobacco industry can be broken into two components: 1. The international commercial companies named in Table 1. 2. The government controlled state monopolies which are subject to national government decisions and are not invariably committed to market expansion or to advertising. A major risk, in fact, one of the major battlegrounds of today, is the insidious invasion of the territory of national tobacco monopolies by the international commercial industry. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in Asia. Two examples will suffice. First, the establishment of joint ventures between the Chinese tobacco monopoly which publicly concedes that tobacco is dangerous to health; that tar content should be lowered, and that health is an issue which it must consider in its marketing operations and the international commercial industry, which is represented already in China by Philip Morris, who are manufacturing Marlboro in China even now. So far, they only have permission for marketing this brand for export purposes. However, the next step will surely be to seek access to the internal Chinese market. Second, the overt and aggressive invasion, by the international industry, of countries whose tobacco supplies are traditionally provided by national mo-

Growth and Ownership in the International Tobacco Industry: Bat 1902–27

Growth and Ownership in the International Tobacco Industry: Bat 1902–27