Building a tobacco-free generation by 2040? Political parties – left and right alike – are not making any real effort in this direction, as they are hindering the most effective measures, according to a UCLouvain study published in the international journal Tobacco Control.
The UCLouvain Institute for Health and Society Research and the Alliance for a Tobacco-Free Society (which brings together the Foundation Against Cancer and its Dutch-speaking counterpart, Kom op tegen Kanker) submitted a questionnaire on tobacco control to the 12 parties sitting in the Federal Parliament in the winter of 2023-2024.
Ten (socialists PS and Vooruit; liberals MR and Open VLD; Flemish nationalist N-VA; Brussels regionalist DéFI; greens Ecolo and Groen; and Christian-Democrats Les Engagés, and CD&V) responded within the deadline. The survey asked them to comment on 15 specific measures.
Some of these measures stem from the "2022-2028 Interfederal Strategy for a Tobacco-Free Generation."
Tobacco-free generation
Launched in 2022, it specifically targets young people. It sets the goal of reducing daily tobacco consumption to less than 6% among 15-24 year-olds by 2028, as well as reducing the number of people who start using tobacco products to (almost) 0% by 2040.
Other measures go further, such as increasing excise taxes on tobacco products by at least 10% or allocating a portion of tax revenue from these products to prevention.
Some go even further by proposing to increase the minimum legal age for purchasing tobacco products each year, so that no one born after 2011 would be able to legally purchase these products. "Great Britain made a similar decision, while New Zealand backtracked on this," said Professor Vincent Lorant, whose team conducted the survey.
"The result: the parties agree on the importance of conducting prevention campaigns and strengthening smoking cessation support. But when it comes to taking stronger action, both on the left and the right, the research shows that the main parties block the most effective measures recognised by the WHO," he said.
Cigarette butt. Credit: Belga/Yorick Jansens
This concerns a significant increase in excise taxes, a gradual ban on sales to younger generations, a reduction in the number of points of sale (by linking them to a specific license), and strict transparency regarding lobbying, among other things.
On this last point, the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) – which Belgium has signed – proposes, in particular, limiting politicians' contacts with tobacco companies because "the latter's lobbying is intense," said Lorant.
While the amounts invested in Belgium are not available, "we know that in France, the annual budget of [tobacco] lobbyists is close to €2 million," he said.
Concretely, this would involve keeping an accessible register of contacts made and adding minutes of these meetings.
Informed, autonomous, and capable?
To justify their position, political parties are echoing the arguments of the tobacco industry, the researchers continued. For example, rising prices encourage smuggling (while prices are higher in France and the Netherlands, the study highlights) or smoking is a personal choice.
Yet, it is marked by social inequalities (18% of smokers are found among the least educated, compared to 8% among the most educated in Belgium, the scientists note).
"The idea that individuals are informed, autonomous, and capable of making their own health choices (...) minimises the importance of tobacco addiction and certain social factors among children and adolescents, such as peer influence," the authors emphasised.
In doing so, policymakers "prefer to protect the short-term economic interests of smokers rather than the health of children and adolescents," the report said. "France and the Netherlands have already implemented significantly more ambitious measures, such as a sharp increase in tobacco excise taxes."
