Webinar Series: Leadership Summit on Tobacco Control

The 18th WCTOH will host a series of open-access webinars in the run up to the Leadership Summit on Tobacco Control, 6-7 May 2021.

The webinars will provide an accessible online platform for tobacco control leaders and experts to discuss key topics related to the theme of the Leadership Summit on Tobacco Control: Navigating Change. This theme addresses the changing political, economic and social landscape of tobacco control, and conversations will focus around the following key topics:

• Health consequences of the use of tobacco products and tobacco cessation.
• Regulatory science and the implementation of tobacco control measures.
• Understanding the tobacco industry and stopping its interference in policy making.
• Policies related to the reduction of demand for tobacco and illicit trade.
• Social justice, the underserved and vulnerable populations.

Join us for the second webinar of the series

Plain packaging: lessons for the next round of implementing countries

Thursday 29 October 2020 at 13:00 – 14:00 CEST

Plain and standardised packaging removes the potential for companies to use their packs as attractive marketing tools by only allowing the tobacco pack to be presented in one colour, shape, and size designed to be minimally attractive and to maximize the salience of the warning labels. Packs may contain no brand imagery. Post-implementation evaluation has shown that “the overall appeal of the cigarette pack among adolescents and young people decreased, quit attempts increased, health warning label impact increased, smokers were more likely to conceal their packs in public, and none of the unintended consequences the tobacco industry alleged occurred.” Official statistics from Australia found that there were “significant decreases in the prevalence of daily smokers, delays among young people picking up smoking, and a decline in the use of unbranded illicit tobacco.” (Advancing Tobacco Plain and Standardised Packaging in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Advice from Experts)

In this webinar, Ms Suzanne Zhou from the McCabe Centre for Law & Cancer in Australia will set out the legal framework for plain packaging across the world. Prof Joanna Cohen will then present the experiences and lessons from Australia and from multiple other countries. Finally, Prof Prakit Vathesatogkit will talk about Thailand’s experience of getting plain packaging legislation introduced and implemented last year. Thailand is the first South Asian country to introduce plain packaging.

Register for the webinar

Previous webinars

Tobacco and COVID-19: understanding the science and policy implications

Tuesday 29 September 2020 at 14:00 – 15:00 CEST.

This webinar reviewed the literature on the relationship between smoking and COVID-19 available to date; examined the biological mechanisms and risk factors influencing susceptibility to infection; and discussed opportunities afforded by the pandemic to progress tobacco control and reduce tobacco related deaths.

Prof Luke Clancy, Director General of the TobaccoFree Research Institute Ireland (TFRI) Dublin, facilitated discussion between expert speakers Dr Silvano Gallus, Dr Janice Leung and Dr Catherine O. Egbe.

Watch a recording of the webinar.

Download the presentation slides:

Tobacco control: threats and opportunities during COVID-19: presentation by expert speaker Catherine O Egbe, PhD

Smoking and Covid-19: A review of publications to-date: presentation by expert speaker Dr Silvano Gallus