This year, World No Tobacco Day focuses on protecting youth from industry manipulation and preventing them from tobacco and nicotine use.
For decades, the tobacco industry has deliberately employed strategic, aggressive and well-resourced tactics to attract youth to tobacco and nicotine products. Internal industry documents reveal in-depth research and calculated approaches designed to attract a new generation of tobacco users, from product design to marketing campaigns aimed at replacing the millions of people who die each year from tobacco-attributable diseases with new consumers – youth.
In response to the tobacco and related industries’ systematic, aggressive and sustained tactics to attract a new generation of tobacco users, World No Tobacco Day 2020 will provide a counter-marketing campaign and empower young people to engage in the fight against Big Tobacco.
Tobacco products kill more than 8 million people every year.
Tobacco and related industries’ tactics to market to children and adolescents include:
- Over 15,000 flavours, most of which attract children and adolescents
- Social media influencers and marketing
- Sponsored events and parties
- School scholarships
- Sleek, sexy designs
- Product placement in entertainment media
- Free product samples
- Single stick cigarettes make addiction more affordable
- Selling products at eye level for children
- Product placement and advertising near schools
Find out more about World No Tobacco Day 2020 here.
Read the FIRS statement on electronic cigarette use in youths.
Source: World Health Organisation
