Focus on the source

An editorial in Common Dreams by Nicholas Freudenberg, a professor of public health at the City University of New York, has called for a change of tobacco control strategy.

In the editorial, relayed by the TMA, Freudenberg said a direct effort should be made to modify the practices of the tobacco industry rather than focusing on changing the behavior of current and future smokers.

To change strategies, Freudenberg advises health advocates and officials to respond to four trends:

(1) industry consolidation;

(2) interference in government policy-making;

(3) marketing tactics to vulnerable populations;

(4) sources of increasing profits.

According to Freudenberg, in the long run, only approaches that make the industry less attractive to investors will deprive it of its “lifeline of capital”.