Varieties of Qualitative Research

Harris, Marvin; Maanen, John Van; Dabbs, Jennifer M.; Faulkner, Robert R.

doi:10.2307/258248

Cited by 1 publication

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“…[37][38][39] Documents were triangulated with public documents such as news reports, TTC investor reports, press releases, industry websites, videos and other media. [40][41][42] This analysis is based on a final collection of 347 tobacco documents published between 1972 and 2021. As most internal documents are from US tobacco companies, this study focuses primarily on the US context, though all companies included global strategies.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pharmaceuticalisation as the tobacco industry’s endgame

Hendlin,

Han,

Ling

2024

BMJ Glob Health

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ContextDeclining smoking prevalence and denormalisation of tobacco in developed countries reduced transnational tobacco company (TTC) profit during 1990s and 2000s. As these companies faced increasingly restrictive policies and lawsuits, they planned to shift their business to socially acceptable reduced-harm products. We describe the internal motivations and strategies to achieve this goal.MethodsWe analysed previously secret tobacco industry documents available through the Truth Tobacco Documents Library. These documents were triangulated with TTCs’ investor and other professional reports, websites and public statements.FindingsMimicking pharmaceutical business models, tobacco companies sought to refurbish their image and ensure long-term profitability by creating and selling pharmaceutical-like products as smoking declined. These products included snus, heated tobacco products, e-cigarettes, nicotine gums and inhalers. Tobacco companies created separate divisions to develop and roll out these products, and the majority developed medical research programmes to steer these products through regulatory agencies, seeking certification as reduced-harm or pharmaceutical products. These products were regarded as key to the survival of the tobacco industry in an unfriendly political and social climate.ConclusionsPharmaceuticalisation was pursued to perpetuate the profitability of tobacco and nicotine for tobacco companies, not as a sincere search to mitigate the harms of smoking in society. Promotion of new pharmaceuticalised products has split the tobacco control community, with some public health professionals and institutions advocating for the use of ‘clean’ reduced-harm nicotine and tobacco products, essentially carrying out tobacco industry objectives.

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