🔗 Share this article

Critics have charged British American Tobacco with “complete double standards” for campaigning against tobacco control measures in Africa that currently exist in the UK.

Zambian lobbying efforts

Correspondence acquired by reporters dispatched by the firm's affiliate in Zambia to the nation's political leaders requests plans to ban tobacco advertising and sponsorship to be canceled or deferred.

The company is attempting modifications of a proposed legislation that include decreasing the proposed size of pictorial cautions on cigarette packaging, the removal of restrictions on scented cigarette varieties, and diminished punishments for any firms breaking the new laws.

Health advocate reaction

“As an elected official, I would say that they enable the defense of the British people and continue the mortality of the Zambian people,” commented the health advocate.

Thousands of residents a year pass away from tobacco-related illnesses, according to World Health Organization estimates.

The campaigner stated the letter was believed to have been distributed to several government departments and was in circulating through public interest organizations.

Worldwide lobbying patterns

It comes amid wider concerns about industry interference with medical guidelines. Recently, WHO officials sounded an alarm that the cigarette manufacturers was intensifying efforts to dilute worldwide restrictions.

“We see evidence of business advocacy globally. Tobacco company fingerprints are on delayed tax increases in Indonesia, stalled legislation in Zambia and even a weakened declaration at the UN summit conference,” said the corporate monitoring director.

Possible outcomes

“When public health regulation fails to be approved because of this letter, the cost might be borne in human lives who might otherwise quit smoking.”

The public health measure progressing through Zambia’s parliament includes regulations surpassing UK legislation by including provisions for e-cigarettes, and requiring that graphic health warnings cover seventy-five percent of product packaging.

Business countermeasures

Via documentation, the company recommends this be lowered to thirty to fifty percent “following international suggested parameters”, deferred for no less than 12 months after the law is enacted.

International experts actually suggests a warning should cover at least fifty percent of the cigarette package face “and attempt to encompass as much of the main visible surfaces as possible”. In the UK, warnings need to encompass sixty-five percent of a packet’s front and back.

Scented product controversy

The corporation requests the elimination of comprehensive limitations on flavored cigarette varieties, arguing that it would lead smokers to “illicitly sold” products. The company proposes restricting fewer varieties of “scents derived from desserts, candy, energy drinks, soft drinks and alcohol drinks”. Each flavored smoking item have been prohibited in Britain since 2020.

The draft bill suggests penalties for multiple violations “extending from a percentage of annual turnover to a decade in prison”.

Business explanation

Through correspondence, the managing director of the African subsidiary states the firm is “committed to good corporate behaviour” and “endorses the aims of governments to lower tobacco use and the connected wellbeing effects” but maintains that “specific rules can have unwelcome and unexpected consequences.”

Activist reaction

The campaigner argued the company's suggested modifications would “weaken this legislation so much that the necessary effect for it to create lasting transformation in society will not be achieved”.

The fact that multiple comparable regulations were present in the UK, where the corporation is based, was “total double standard”, he commented.

“We reside in a global village. When I cultivate smoking products in my back yard and harvest that and distribute the goods – and my family members avoid tobacco, but my community's youth consumes … to enrich myself and all the subsequent offspring while my neighbour’s children are succumbing … is in itself absolute spiritual bankruptcy.”

Anti-smoking regulations in the UK or elsewhere had not resulted in corporate closures, the campaigner stated. “Legislation never shuts down the industry. They merely safeguard the people.”

Standard business position

The corporate communicator stated: “The corporation runs its activities following with applicable local laws. Moreover, the corporation engages in the nation's lawmaking procedures in line with the relevant frameworks which provide for stakeholder participation in legislation creation.”

The corporation remained “not against rules”, the representative commented, mentioning that minors should be shielded from acquiring smoking products and nicotine.

“We champion evolving legislation to realize planned public health goals, while acknowledging the spectrum of entitlements and duties on industry, consumers and related stakeholders,” the spokesperson stated, mentioning that the corporation's recommendations “represent the situation of the Zambian market and tobacco industry, which involves rising levels of black market activity”.

Zambia’s department of trade, commerce and industry was contacted for response.