The devil is in the detail: tobacco industry political influence in the Dutch implementation of the 2001 EU Tobacco Products Directive

Lie, Jessamina Lih Yan; Willemsen, Marc C.; Vries, Nanne K. de; Fooks, Gary

doi:10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2015-052302

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 25 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…62 Similar to other HICs, [63][64][65][66] and LMICs, 67 68 tobacco companies attempted to weaken already approved smoke-free policies by lobbying for exemptions in smoke-free areas during the writing of implementing regulations. The submission of similar public comments to exempt outdoor smoke-free areas by 700 smokers represented a much larger response to a public consultation than normal is a common industry tactic used elsewhere.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The importance of continued engagement during the implementation phase of tobacco control policies in a middle-income country: the case of Costa Rica

Crosbie

Sosa

Glantz³

2016

Tob Control

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Objective To analyse the process of implementing and enforcing smoke-free environments, tobacco advertising, tobacco taxes and health warning labels from Costa Rica's 2012 tobacco control law. Method Review of tobacco control legislation, newspaper articles and interviewing key informants. Results Despite overcoming decades of tobacco industry dominance to win enactment of a strong tobacco control law in March 2012 consistent with WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the tobacco industry and their allies lobbied executive branch authorities for exemptions in smoke-free environments to create public confusion, and continued to report in the media that increasing cigarette taxes led to a rise in illicit trade. In response, tobacco control advocates, with technical support from international health groups, helped strengthen tobacco advertising regulations by prohibiting advertising at the point-of-sale (POS) and banning corporate social responsibility campaigns. The Health Ministry used increased tobacco taxes earmarked for tobacco control to help effectively promote and enforce the law, resulting in high compliance for smoke-free environments, advertising restrictions and health warning label (HWL) regulations. Despite this success, government trade concerns allowed, as of December 2015, POS tobacco advertising, and delayed the release of HWL regulations for 15 months. Conclusions The implementation phase continues to be a site of intensive tobacco industry political activity in low and middle-income countries. International support and earmarked tobacco taxes provide important technical and financial assistance to implement tobacco control policies, but more legal expertise is needed to overcome government trade concerns and avoid unnecessary delays in implementation.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The importance of continued engagement during the implementation phase of tobacco control policies in a middle-income country: the case of Costa Rica

Crosbie

Sosa

Glantz³

2016

Tob Control

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Second, the materials subjected to analysis were not sufficient. To overcome the limitations of such data, several studies have analyzed the contents of media reports 48,49 , since data not considered previously can be extracted from media reports. Third, this study dealt only with the implementation of GHWLs.…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of the legislative process related to the implementation of graphic health warning labels on tobacco products in South Korea

Hwang¹,

Cho²,

Lee³

2020

Tob. Induc. Dis.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…lengthy discussions in both houses of parliament about interpretations of the text, fuelled by claims from the industry that the Dutch interpretation was more far-reaching than strictly necessary. One issue was whether the black border around the new health warnings should be included or excluded from the warning space (Lie, Willemsen, De Vries, & Fooks, 2016). Ultimately the Dutch government agreed to the industry's interpretation, against the advice of the EC.…”

Section: Implementation Of Directivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The International Context: EU and WHO

Willemsen

2018

Tobacco Control Policy in the Netherlands

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Since the 1960s, governments around the world have been developing policies to control tobacco. Countries have employed different combinations of measures (World Bank, 1999), taking national circumstances into account. For example, the United Kingdom attached importance to building a national infrastructure of smoking cessation support in combination with having the highest cigarette prices in Europe, while Australia invested in mass media campaigns and was at the forefront of pictorial health warnings and plain packaging, in addition to high tobacco taxes. In contrast, the United States combined strong smoking bans to protect non-smokers, with restrictions on the sale of tobacco to youth and a long history of litigation against the tobacco industry, but has relatively low cigarette taxes, modest health warnings on cigarette packs, and weak advertising restrictions (Kagan & Nelson, 2001). Despite such differences, there is an increasing convergence of strategies across countries (Studlar, 2006). There are two aspects to this. The first is the process of governments and tobacco control coalitions becoming inspired by countries that lead the way, facilitated by increased levels of corporation and coordination of tobacco control advocacy at the international level. The second is the emergence of “hard” international law to which national governments need to abide. This is facilitated by supranational legislation from the EU and WHO forcing countries to adopt similar policies. In Europe these processes add two extra layers of governance above the national and sub-national levels, and as a result tobacco control policymaking has become the outcome of a continuous negotiation among nested governments at several tiers, a process which has been described as multi-level governance (Asare, Cairney, & Studlar, 2009; Marks & Hooghe, 2003).

show abstract

The devil is in the detail: tobacco industry political influence in the Dutch implementation of the 2001 EU Tobacco Products Directive

Cited by 10 publications

References 25 publications

The importance of continued engagement during the implementation phase of tobacco control policies in a middle-income country: the case of Costa Rica

The importance of continued engagement during the implementation phase of tobacco control policies in a middle-income country: the case of Costa Rica

Analysis of the legislative process related to the implementation of graphic health warning labels on tobacco products in South Korea

The International Context: EU and WHO

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About