Massive Tobacco Targets Caribbean Nations Forward Of International Treaty Talks – Governments Should Shut Down Business Interference

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24, 2025 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — As practically each nation on this planet prepares to satisfy in Geneva subsequent month for the Eleventh Convention of the Events (COP11) to the WHO Framework Conference on Tobacco Management (FCTC), the world’s largest tobacco firms are actively focusing on Caribbean nations to weaken world well being commitments which have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

At COP11, 183 Events to the FCTC will come collectively to strengthen efforts to scale back tobacco use and defend public well being. For 20 years, the FCTC has efficiently guided international locations in adopting confirmed measures like smoke-free legal guidelines, image warning labels on tobacco merchandise, larger tobacco taxes and prohibitions on tobacco advertising and marketing. The results of these polices has been hundreds of thousands of lives saved around the globe.

However as governments put together for COP11, the tobacco business is stepping up efforts to undermine the treaty’s progress on public well being. Saint Kitts and Nevis, together with Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago are being actively focused by tobacco firms in search of to affect Caribbean governments to weaken world public well being commitments. Comparable ways are being deployed around the globe as a part of the business’s coordinated world playbook.

At COP10 in Panama, positions taken by Saint Kitts and Nevis raised severe alarm amongst public well being advocates for carefully mirroring tobacco business speaking factors – a sample that has continued within the leadup to COP11.

Main well being organizations together with the Marketing campaign for Tobacco-Free Children, the International Alliance for Tobacco Management, the Wholesome Caribbean Coalition, Lake, and St. Kitts and Nevis NCD Alliance have despatched a letter to the Prime Minister of Saint Kitts and Nevis. The letter expresses concern about the necessity to safeguard public well being policymaking from the affect of the tobacco business. It notes that the tobacco business prioritizes revenue over individuals’s lives, particularly by advertising and marketing addictive merchandise like e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches and heated tobacco merchandise to younger individuals.

As COP11 approaches, governments should bear in mind one fact: The tobacco business is the architect of the worldwide tobacco epidemic which kills greater than 8 million individuals every year. Massive Tobacco’s presence is poisonous to rational, evidence-based policymaking. Governments should shut the door on tobacco business interference and stand united to guard children from a lifetime of dependancy.

Because the world prepares for COP11 discussions, governments ought to be targeted on renewing commitments to tackling tobacco use and nicotine dependancy – as a result of hundreds of thousands of lives rely on governments utilizing their energy to guard public well being.