The Member of Parliament (MP) for North Dayi, Joycelyn Quashie, has called for a total ban on flavoured tobacco and nicotine products as part of efforts to protect the youth by shielding them from targeted marketing tactics employed by the tobacco industry.

She explained that the tobacco industry, facing declining numbers in traditional markets, had placed young people at the centre of their new strategy by glamourising smoking and using deceptive marketing in a bid to lure them into smoking.

“Mr Speaker, behind the shiny packaging, the attractive flavours, and the sleek advertisements lies a multi-billion-dollar industry that is unrelenting in its efforts to recruit the next generation of consumers — our children, our youth,” Mrs Quashie stated.

“They use digital platforms, influencers, giveaways, and misleading “harm reduction” claims to paint smoking and vaping as trendy, modern, and even harmless,” she added.

The North Dayi MP was speaking on the floor on parliament in commemoration of the World No Tobacco Day (WNTD), observed annually on May 31 and led by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

This year’s global theme; "Unmasking the Appeal: Exposing Industry Tactics on Tobacco and Nicotine Products,” aims to reveal the strategies employed by the tobacco and nicotine industries to make their harmful products enticing, particularly to young people.

By exposing these tactics, WHO seeks to drive awareness, advocate for stronger policies, including a ban on flavours that make tobacco and nicotine products more appealing, and protect public health.

Predatory marketing

Mrs Quashie outlined a range of manipulative tactics used by tobacco companies to entrench nicotine use, particularly among the youth. 

She accused these companies of engaging in predatory and deceptive practices, such as sponsoring youth-focused events and using subtle, indirect advertising to glamourise their products.

She emphasised how they disguised the harshness of nicotine with flavoured products, fund biased research to mislead the public, and lobby policymakers to resist stricter regulations.

Legislator pointed out as a strategy to embed these products in the social imagination as desirable symbols of status.

She stressed that these tactics are masked under the rhetoric of innovation and consumer choice, deliberately normalising harmful products while concealing their true dangers — all in a bid to attract and addict a new generation of users.

“It is time we unmask these tactics and protect our people — especially the youth — from manipulation,” she stated.

Mrs Quashie expressed grave concerns about the increasing normalisation of nicotine products — particularly e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products — under the guise of innovation and choice, stressing that; “there is no safe level of tobacco or nicotine use,”

The idea, she said, was that new products were somehow less harmful was not only scientifically questionable, but also morally irresponsible when marketed to young people

“According to the US National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, a single cigarette contains over 4,800 chemicals, 69 of which are known to cause cancer while secondhand smoke contains over 7,000 chemicals, including 70 cancer-causing chemicals,” she stated.

Control measures

“Mr Speaker, we know that tobacco remains one of the leading preventable causes of death globally. In Ghana, the burden of tobacco-related diseases is rising quietly but steadily — heart disease, cancer, chronic respiratory illnesses — all of which strain our already fragile health system,”Ms Quashie said.

Therefore, to mitigate the looming crisis, she recommended the full implementation and enforcement of the Public Health Act (Act 851), particularly its tobacco control provisions.

She urged the strengthening of regulations on the marketing and sale of new tobacco and nicotine products, including a ban on advertising and flavoured products that appeal to the youth.

Additionally, she called for increased public education on the dangers of tobacco and nicotine use, especially in schools and communities, to raise awareness and prevent initiation among young people.