World Lung Day: Nigeria Must Reject Big Tobacco’s Harm Reduction Scam
By Robert Egbe
In May this year, I received an unusual email, an invitation from a South African PR agency I had never heard of.
They offered to cover logistics for me to attend a programme in Cape Town.
The only condition? Publish at least two articles about the event and amplify it across my networks.
The flyer told the full story: it was a Big Tobacco event, promoting so-called “smokeless” products still loaded with nicotine.
Similar invitations were likely sent to selected journalists across Africa.
This is not an isolated case. Increasingly, the tobacco industry is rebranding its old tricks, sponsoring media workshops disguised as “harm reduction” training and pushing content online to cast emerging nicotine products in a positive light.
These efforts, carefully packaged as knowledge-sharing, are nothing more than attempts to manipulate public discourse.
Where direct advertising, promotion and sponsorship (TAPS) are banned, as in Nigeria and other World Health Organisation (WHO) signatory countries,
Big Tobacco resorts to underhand strategies. But the facts remain clear: tobacco kills.
In Nigeria alone, more than 29,000 lives are lost annually to tobacco-related diseases. Globally, the toll exceeds 7 million.
On this World Lung Day, themed “Healthy Lungs, Healthy Life”, we are reminded that tobacco remains one of the greatest threats to lung health.
Over a million people die of lung cancer worldwide every year, with cigarette smoking accounting for nearly 90% of male cases and up to 80% among women.
Whether smoked, vaped or chewed, tobacco damages nearly every organ of the body, with its most devastating impact on the lungs and the heart.
The Harm Reduction Myth
Currently, Big Tobacco is aggressively pushing its so-called Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR) agenda.
It claims products such as vapes, e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products, nicotine pouches and other electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) are the pathway to a “smoke-free future.”
This is a false promise.
“Smokeless” tobacco has been directly linked to cancers of the mouth, throat and pancreas, as well as heart disease, gum disorders, stillbirth, nicotine poisoning in children and increased risk of death from stroke.
For Nigeria, where healthcare systems are already overstretched, this is not only a health crisis but also an economic one.
Treatment costs are crushing. Families sink into poverty, while the nation loses productivity from premature deaths.
Research shows Nigeria spends more on treating tobacco-related illnesses than it earns from tobacco taxes and profits. In short, tobacco is a net loss, economically and socially.
What Nigeria Must Do
To make World Lung Day meaningful, Nigeria must strengthen enforcement of existing tobacco control laws, particularly:
Closing loopholes on emerging nicotine products.
Banning sales to minors and enforcing penalties.
Raising taxes on tobacco to at least 100% as civil society advocates, especially to reduce youth uptake.
Investing in cessation support, ensuring smokers and chewers have affordable access to counselling and treatment.
Supporting farmers to transition to alternative crops, freeing them from the grip of the tobacco economy.
Tobacco in any form is dangerous, there is no “safe” product. Nigerians must not fall for Big Tobacco’s rebranded deception.
As for me, if you’re wondering, I declined that invitation.
Egbe is a tobacco control advocate at Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA).
