World Health Organization (WHO) has declared every year 31st of May as the World No Tobacco Day (WNTD). The Centre for Combating Tobacco (CCT) is the tobacco observatory established in Sri Lanka under the Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) with a mandate to monitor the tobacco industry activities and interference in the South Asian Region. South Asia includes eight (8) countries namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
This World No Tobacco Day, in 2022, we are launching a new page series publishing the summary of reported incidents of Tobacco Industry Interference in South Asia. These pages will feature the cannabis industry activities and interference as well when relevant, as the cannabis industry is heavily infiltrated by the tobacco industry at present.
The investigative research findings will be included on a page titled “Tobacco Industry Interference in South Asia” which will be published monthly starting from the month of June 2022. Each page will consist of the details of tobacco and cannabis industry interference in the respective month, categorized under each country and the summary of reported incidents up to the respective month under three columns; reported countries, related tobacco companies and the number of incidents. You can access those pages via www.tobaccounmaskedsouth.asia.