Public Health on Top

With a view to further strengthening the tobacco control law, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, MoHFW, has started the amendment process of the Smoking and Tobacco Products Usage, Control, Amendment, Act 2013. Following various steps, a draft amendment proposal has already been sent to the Cabinet Division for approval. Once approved by the Cabinet, the amendment proposal will then go through a vetting procedure and be later presented before the national parliament for finalization. However, tobacco companies have deployed a number of front groups, 'third parties', and international lobby groups to thwart the amendment process. Some other tactics employed by the tobacco industry include putting pressure on MoHFW through non-health ministries and govt. bodies in the amendment process, publishing articles and columns by economists who benefitted from the industry and spreading false and fabricated information through paid media campaigns. The tobacco industry is also making use of the 'third party technique", i.e., using the Intellectual Property Association of Bangladesh (IPAB) to do its bidding, by organizing policy dialogues to invalidate the draft amendment proposal as 'illogical". National Association of Small and Cottage Industries of Bangladesh, NASCIB, has also emerged as a mouthpiece of tobacco companies as it is also organizing press conferences in different parts of the country claiming that the draft amendment proposal, if adopted, would severely hurt the small businessmen and retailers. Besides, British American Tobacco Bangladesh (BATB), and Japan Tobacco International (JTI) are members of several business associations and chambers of commerce. These organizations are being used by BATB and JTI to campaign against the draft amendment proposal. Bangladesh Electronic Nicotine Delivery System Traders Association (BENDSTA), and Voice of Vapers Bangladesh (VoV Bangladesh), vape and e-cigarette related front groups with support from the tobacco industry, are also organizing press conferences and webinars protesting the proposed ban on e-cigarettes. A so-called pro-vape international group of experts, supported by the PMI-funded Foundation for Smoke-free World, FSFW, has written a letter addressed to the Health Ministry to reconsider such ban. Expressing concern over an increase in the alleged influx of counterfeit and smuggled cigarettes and subsequent drop in government revenue from the tobacco sector, BATB has sent a letter to the National Board of Revenue, NBR, urging the govt. to interfere in the amendment process on its behalf. Voicing the same concerns, NBR then wrote a letter to the Health Services Division, urging the latter to take the points raised by BATB into consideration. Tobacco companies are also utilizing economists, on their payroll or benefitted from the industry in other ways, to write articles and columns that are based on fabricated and distorted information with a view to misleading the policymakers regarding the draft amendment proposal. In addition, as a part of the industry's concerted media campaign aimed at derailing the amendment process, similar reports prepared by companies surfaced in different media outlets.

To protect business interests, tobacco companies are employing similar strategies and tactics across the world to derail the adoption and implementation of tobacco control measures. So, to safeguard public health, the government must not allow itself to be misled by the industry and finalize the amendment process at the earliest.