Blogs and reports

In this section there are blogs published in English on ASH Finland’s website, reports and research.

Blogs

Addressing industry profits as part of tobacco control (ext. link)

Rob Branston, Dr, Associate Professor in Business Economics, University of Bath

Given the harm caused by tobacco products, most countries apply excise taxes in order to increase their retail price and hence encourage existing users to quit and discourage others from starting. The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests such taxes should be at least 75% of the retail price of tobacco, so you would be forgiven for thinking that left very little room for tobacco companies to earn that much profit. In actual fact, manufacturing tobacco products is inordinately profitable despite high taxes.

This blog is translated into Finnish here.

Europe needs a renewed commitment to eliminating tobacco

Anca Toma Friedlaender, the Director of Smoke Free Partnership (SFP)

Europe has come a long way in fighting tobacco. There’s no doubt about that. The effects of policies adopted in the last 20 years or so are showing. Europeans are smoking less. Fewer kids are taking up smoking. But is all the work done that should be done? Is tobacco “solved”?

Tobacco and nicotine-free Nordic countries?

Nadja Frederiksen, the Project Manager at Nordic Welfare Centre

Although the prevalence of smokers are overall declining in the Nordic countries, about 33500 people died of tobacco-related diseases in the Nordic countries in 2016, according to The Tobacco Atlas. There is therefore a great rationale in continuing the fight against tobacco smoking in the Nordic countries, to protect both current and future generations against tobacco.

Reports, research

Adolescent Health and Lifestyle Survey 2019: smoking and drinking among young people no longer decreasing

The use of tobacco products among Finnish adolescents has long been declining. Over the past two years, however, the decreasing trend seems to have stopped. Snus use is on the rise, even among girls. The decline in alcohol consumption among Finnish young people has also stopped. These are among the findings of the 2019 Adolescent Health and Lifestyle Survey. Conducted every two years, the survey follows the health behaviors of 12 to 18-year-old Finns. Conclusions and tables in the survey are also available in English.

GGTC, 2022: Tobacco’s toxic plastics – a global outlook (pdf)

Tobacco products’ post-consumer waste, including their packaging and cigarette butts, are some of the
most widely littered items in the planet.

Smoke Free Partnership Coalition’s statement on the COVID-19 pandemic and the importance of tobacco control

The statement outlines several key tobacco control priorities that need to be taken into account for the benefit of public health especially in light of COVID-19. It is intended for policy-makers, health advocates as well as media.

Smoking Cessation. A Report of the Surgeon General. 2020 (pdf)

The 34th tobacco-related Surgeon General’s Report published since 1964 summarizes the latest evidence on the health benefts of cessation.

Tobacco: Antisocial, Unfair, Harmful to the Environment. Tobacco Production and Consumption as an Example of the Complexity of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 2015 (pdf)

What tobacco has to do with human dignity and why tobacco impedes human development? How tobacco destroys the environment? These and several other important questions are covered in this report.

The Tobacco Control Scale 2019 in Europe (pdf)

The report describes the results of a survey of tobacco control activity in 36 European countries in 2019, using the Tobacco Control Scale (TCS).

Tobacco: Reviewing the growing financial risks, 2018 (pdf)

This report demonstrates that declining returns and growing business threats present a clear and present financial risk for investors in tobacco.

Unfairtobacco, 2020: Children’s Rights and Tobacco Control: The right to a tobacco-free world (pdf)

Sustainable development, children’s rights and tobacco control. Impact of smoking and secondhand smoke for children and adolescents. Social inequalities in smoking among children and adolescents. The use of influencer marketing and social media by tobacco companies. Children’s views. Exposure to secondhand smoke in households: children’s rights versus privacy rights of caretakers. Children in tobacco growing – the most vulnerable in the supply chain. Effective measures for a tobacco-free world.

WHO, 2022: Tobacco: poisoning our planet (pdf)

The harmful impact of the tobacco industry on the environment is vast and growing, and has thus far received relatively little attention from researchers and policy-makers.

WHO, 2021: Through a Gender Lens. Women add tobacco in the WHO European Region(pdf)

This report provides a brief summary of some of the challenges, that women and girls face in the context of the tobacco epidemic in the WHO European Region, outlining the gendered nature of tobacco use.

WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2023: protect people from tobacco smoke (pdf)

The ninth WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic shows that many countries continue to make progress in the fight against tobacco, but efforts must be accelerated to protect people from the harms of tobacco and second-hand smoke.

WHO FCTC Global Studies Series, 2018: Cigarette smoking. An assessment of tobacco’s global environmental footprint across its entire supply chain and policy strategies to reduce it (pdf)

Every stage from tobacco cultivation and curing, to cigarette manufacturing, distribution, consumption and discarding in the global tobacco supply chain involves considerable resource inputs, and results in the production of wastes and emissions.

WHO, 2017: Tobacco and its environmental impact: an overview (pdf)

“This overview opens the lid on a Pandora’s Box containing the quieter but shockingly widespread impacts of tobacco from an environmental perspective. The tobacco industry damages the environment in ways that go far beyond the effects of the smoke that cigarettes put into the air.”