The Problem with Tobacco Control Policies

The tobacco industry is among well-established industries that have provided employment and other economic benefits for centuries. The tobacco industry has profited from selling an addictive product, thus fueling the tobacco epidemic. The industry has brought a lot of direct and indirect environmental and human adversities through the cultivation and consumption of tobacco. Some environmental and ecological challenges from the tobacco industry include deforestation, health problems, and social and human rights challenges. Tobacco remains a major cause of death and morbidity decades after its ill effects were first documented. Studies have established that tobacco smoking causes cancer, heart disease, diabetes, lung diseases, stroke, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The study predicts that without additional control measures, tobacco is likely to lead to over one billion deaths by the end of the 21st century.
Governments and public health organizations became aware of the severe effects of tobacco and its evolution into a large-scale pandemic in the late twentieth century. Policymakers embarked on processes to formulate policies that would regulate the cultivation and consumption of tobacco. In 2003, the World Health Organization (WHO) spearheaded the development of the Framework Convention on Tobacco (FCTC) to control tobacco use among member states. In 2008, the WHO introduced the MPOWER package, which represents six evidence-based tobacco control measures through MPOWER, WHO advocates for monitoring the use of tobacco and prevention policies, protecting people from tobacco smoke.
2018 the Illicit Trade Protocol (ITP) was introduced under FCTC to eliminate illicit tobacco product trade. ITP and FCTC redefine international policies in health promotion and disease prevention. The ITP and FCTC seek to establish cooperation between countries to prevent illicit trade and advertising (Peruga et al., 2021). Tobacco companies are the main challenge to these policies since they seek to expand their markets through intensive targeting of vulnerable populations such as women, children, and people experiencing poverty in society. Peruga et al. (2021) established various accomplishments and challenges of the ITP and FCTC policies. The five achievements include the operationalization of the FCTC and adoption by over 90% of member states, a decrease in the prevalence of smoking and exposure to secondhand smoking, an increase in societies benefiting from at least one MPOWER measure since 2007, and capacity for plain packaging to resist legal challenges (Peruga et al., 2021).
The five challenges to FCTC include failure to increase tobacco taxes significantly, failure to ban ingredients in tobacco products, failure to ban corporate social responsibility initiatives by the tobacco industry, failure to resolve the health versus economy dilemma, and challenge to counter the tactics by the tobacco industries. Flor et al. (2021) found that adopting tobacco demand reduction policies effectively reduces tobacco smoking prevalence globally. Policies must also contain clear warnings of the harms caused by tobacco to promote knowledge of the health risks and changes in tobacco smoking behaviors.

References
Flor, L. S., Reitsma, M. B., Gupta, V., Ng, M., & Gakidou, E. (2021). The effects of tobacco control policies on global smoking prevalence. Nature Medicine, 27(2), 239–243. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-01210-8
Peruga, A., López, M. J., Martinez, C., & Fernández, E. (2021). Tobacco control policies in the 21st century: Achievements and open challenges. Molecular Oncology, 15(3), 744–752. https://doi.org/10.1002/1878-0261.12918