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FILE PHOTO: A man vapes at a coffeeshop.
The Heart and Stroke Foundation is alarmed by how the tobacco industry focusses on young customers through its marketing. This as today marks World No Tobacco Day.
The global theme this year aims to expose industry tactics on tobacco and nicotine products, including vaping and e-cigarettes.
Health Promotion & Risk Assessment Team Lead at the foundation, Sister Juandre Watson, says major tobacco companies are now also leveraging social media and influencers to glamorise their products.
“You know, misleading messaging promotes E-cigarettes and similar products as safer alternatives, fostering a deceptive sense of security. The big tobacco tactics, you know, they target the youth and they strategically place their products near schools, targeting primary and secondary schools.”
Watson says that about 68.2 percent of retailers display their items at child’s eye level and over half of them position them near sweets.
She adds that this is quite disturbing.
PODCAST | Warning – Tobacco industry unleashes aggressive marketing to lure young people:
