C-6: Tobacco Greenwashing: Misinformation / Disinformation in the Times of COVID-19
- There is an urgent need to develop a Comprehensive Multi-Sectoral Tobacco
Control Policy. Addressing the issues in a disjointed manner exposes these
policies to industrial interference, eventual evasion, or sometimes court
challenges. The Ministry of National Health Services Regulation and
Coordination and its subsidiary Directorate of Tobacco Control, in
collaboration with the civil society partners working on tobacco control,
need to develop this policy.
- An investment should be made in health sector by the government to
constitute a Tobacco Control Cell or Tobacco Control Board to effectively
monitor and implement tobacco control policies.
- The tobacco industry is one of the largest taxpayers. However, the tax
revenues must not be allowed to be used as a coercion tool, especially at the
cost of public health.
- Many small and large countries both from the developed world and the
LMICs have set examples of robust tobacco control laws to safeguard public
health. Pakistan needs to follow regional as well as global best practices.
- The government should increase taxes and import duty on cigarettes and
other related products to control tobacco use.
- In the presence of an increasing number of deaths across the world
associated with tobacco use and more specifically because of e-cigarettes, it
is appropriate for Pakistan to start developing legislation controlling the
import, transportation, and spread of e-cigarettes, through preemptive
measures.
- To mitigate slowing tobacco consumption reduced sales and falling
clientele, the tobacco industry has been deliberately involved in polluting the
knowledge and scientific evidence related to the detrimental impact on
health caused by smoking/vaping. To achieve this, the tobacco industry has
been influencing research agendas, creating disinformation in efforts to
delink the smoking-cancer relationship, misinforming the public regarding
the cause-effect relationship between tobacco use and Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), and deluding healthy indoor climatic agendas. The
Ministry of National Health Services Regulation and Coordination should
work with NGOs and universities with health departments to address such
campaigns.
- Reporting environmental impact and funding environmental CSR projects
and organisations serves to greenwash tobacco companies, and detract from
the harms the industry inflicts on the environment and environmental health.
The WHO recommends that steps to limit greenwashing include legislating
at international and local levels to require companies meet specific
disclosure requirements for material emissions, water usage, waste disposal,
chemical use, child labour and other targets.
- There is need for innovative, cross-country research on how to counter
practices which are detrimental to the creation of sound/scientific
knowledge/evidence related to the ill-effects of tobacco use on individual
health, and health systems in countries like Pakistan and other South Asian
countries.
- There should be better coordination among provincial governments to
develop a policy consensus over policy interventions and methods to control
usage of tobacco in Pakistan.
