Tobacco control
[1] The tobacco control field comprises the activity of disparate health, policy and legal research and reform advocacy bodies across the world.
Thus, these sentences would not be made against tobacco per se (whose individual consumption was not penalized as long as it was moderate), but rather for its improper use in places considered sacred and public.
However, the work of Richard Doll in the UK, who conclusively identified the causal link between smoking and lung cancer in 1952, brought this topic back to attention.
However, smoking prevalence and associated ill health continued to rise in the developed world in the first three decades following Richard Doll's discovery, with governments sometimes reluctant to curtail a habit seen as popular as a result - and increasingly organised disinformation efforts by the tobacco industry and their proxies (covered in more detail below).
In the United States, the 1964 report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General represented a landmark document that included an objective synthesis of the evidence of the health consequences of smoking according to causal criteria.
[11] The report concluded that cigarette smoking was a cause of lung cancer in men and sufficient in scope that "remedial action" was warranted at the societal level.
Progress was initially notable at a state or national level, particularly the pioneering smoke-free public places legislation introduced in New York City in 2002 and the Republic of Ireland in 2004, and the UK efforts to encapsulate the crucial elements of tobacco control activity in the 2004 'six-strand approach' (to deliver upon the joined-up approach set out in the white paper 'Smoking Kills' [12]) and its local equivalent, the 'seven hexagons of tobacco control'.
[14] The six components are: One of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goal 3 of the United Nations (to be achieved by 2030) is to "Strengthen the implementation of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in all countries, as appropriate."
[16] In December 2022, New Zealand became the first country to pass a bill that effectively raises the minimum age for cigarette consumption annually, in an effort to prohibit their sale to future generations.
[21] Tobacco packaging warning messages which are graphic, larger, and more comprehensive in content are more effective in communicating health risks and knowledge about smoking.
[25] Smoking in indoor workplaces was first prohibited nationwide by the Republic of Ireland in 2003, with most other leading economies following suit with similar ordinances in subsequent years.
[citation needed] Now an accepted element of the public health arena, tobacco control policies and activity are seen to have been effective in those administrations which have implemented them in a co-ordinated fashion.
