Public Health on Top

It has become impossible for anyone currently living in Bangladesh to go out of home and not noticing any promotional activities of Japan Tobacco International (JTI). Even when you are safe and secluded inside your house, JTI’s aggressive marketing campaign can reach you through social media. According to Smoking and Tobacco Products Usage (control) Act 2005, advertisement and promotion of any tobacco product is a punishable offense. Article 5 of the 2005 Act defines ‘the advertisement of tobacco products’ as conducting any kind of commercial activities with intention of directly or indirectly encourage the use of tobacco or tobacco products. The Act also bans the promotion of tobacco products at the point-of-sale. However, since JTI’s infiltration into the cigarette market of Bangladesh, it has been continuing violating the tobacco control law in order to promote its brands through an aggressive marketing campaign. Roads and streets, shops- large or small, tea stalls, Facebook- the promotional items of JTI are in abundance. Countless cigarette delivery van and cycles marked with JTI distinct brand color always manage to appear before someone the moment he comes out of the house. JTI is using these vehicles to promote its brands. JTI is also using the local media to widely spread its messages and promote its brands. Promotional agents are also wearing such JTI T-shirts, introducing themselves as brand ambassadors of JTI. They are divided into teams and assigned different areas to promote JTI cigarettes. Tobacco points-of-sales are now being decorated using leaflets, stickers, dummy packets. The company is also organizing game shows and movie carnivals to encourage the youth into lighting up. To lure the people into smoking, the company is also distributing stickers saying one cup of tea and one stick of cigarette cost only BDT 10. The retailers are also being offered gifts items so that they put more effort into expanding sale. The company is also organizing different programs to engage more and more sales person in its promotional campaign and later circulate the images of such programs using social media to draw the attention of the youth.
The Honorable Prime Minister has declared that Bangladesh will become tobacco-free by 2040. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is working hard to achieve the goal. Showing sheer disregard to all these efforts, JTI is conducting an all-out desperate campaign to create new smokers and push tobacco-free Bangladesh from the realm of possibility. Such death marketing must be uprooted by proper and effective implementation of tobacco control laws.