https://healthpolicy-watch.news/big-tobacco-is-no-longer-selling-cigaret...
Extracts and a comment from me below.
==
The tobacco industry is using sophisticated marketing aimed at young people.
By Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe
Europe needs a more precise focus to address the tobacco industry’s “engineered architecture of addiction”, featuring flavoured tobacco and nicotine products with ever more sleek designs. As an early champion of global tobacco legislation, the region can reposition itself to lead again – including through updated European Union directives on tobacco product regulation, advertising and taxation.
What is increasingly evident today is that the danger is no longer confined to tobacco itself. It has shifted toward the engineered architecture of addiction – products designed to attract new consumers, sustain dependence and undermine public health...
==
COMMENT (NPW): In a HIFA message a few days ago, I suggested that five industries - tobacco, alcohol, prescription-opioid, illegal-opioid and cannabis - are collectively exploiting around 1.5 billion vulnerable people worldwide to sell their products for maximum profit. I wrote 'The substance industries want people to continue to be ignorant of risks and fight back against public health efforts.'
This new article by Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, highlights another perspective: an 'engineered architecture of addiction' designed to trap people into a state of chronic dependence with huge finalcial rewards for the industry.
We can be sure that all five industries, including the prescription and illegal opioid industries, are doing the same.
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org