Celebrated on 31 May under the theme “Bright products. Dark intentions. Unmasking the Appeal,” this year’s World No Tobacco Day spotlighted the tobacco industry’s long-standing pattern of polished messaging concealing deeply-entrenched commercial interests.
At a time when bold action is needed for a tobacco-free future, Big Tobacco continues obstructing progress by hijacking health narratives – notably through its calculated vaping shift in recent years.
Despite its rhetoric on smokeless products, new data reported in June reveals that the tobacco industry remains firmly dependent on cigarette sales, which accounted for roughly three-quarters of Western tobacco giants’ revenue in 2024. Moreover, Big Tobacco stocks are soaring – Philip Morris International (PMI) and British American Tobacco (BAT) are up 50% and 25% this year, respectively – fueled by rising prices and continued global demand.
Make no mistake – the tobacco industry has not used vaping as a tool for change, but as a hedge against decline. This situation makes the rise of tobacco-backed advocacy groups like the World Vapers’ Alliance especially troubling, with the tobacco giants’ infiltration of vaping advocacy compromising the legitimate efforts of the vaping industry unaligned with Big Tobacco to build balanced, science-based regulation that helps smokers quit tobacco while protecting young people.
Tobacco majors forced to show their hand
Dropping any pretence concerning the industry’s real priorities, PMI CEO Jacek Olczak recently admitted to The Financial Times that thinking “everyone will go to vaping (in order to quit smoking) is wrong.” While global smoking prevalence has fallen from one in three adults in 2000 to one in five today, population growth has kept overall numbers high, with cigarette consumption remaining stubbornly persistent and above the global average in legacy markets like Europe.
Meanwhile, Big Tobacco’s vaping products are struggling on both sides of the Atlantic, disproving the industry’s false promise that vaping would replace cigarettes and ensure its long-term survival. BAT – maker of the vaping brand Vuse – recently forecast a mid-teens percentage drop in global vape sales for the first half of the year, while vaping products in the US have posted year-on-year sales declines in nearly every month for two years, and vaping uptake has flatlined in the UK.
Amid this sudden downturn after a period of rapid vape sale growth between 2021 and 2024, PMI and BAT are having to “rethink their strategies” on the “predominantly smokeless” transition, according to Euromonitor analyst Shane MacGuill. This shift has far-reaching consequences. Faced with tightening regulations and falling sales, the tobacco industry’s narrative is losing credibility, with its lack of sincerity and commitment to vaping as a public health tool becoming clear as day. Moreover, these market and regulatory trends highlight the menace that Big Tobacco represents for the vaping sector, which – unlike the tobacco industry – is structurally designed to help smokers stay away from cigarettes.
World Vapers’ Alliance: the tobacco industry’s Trojan horse
Using front groups for covert lobbying to boost its profits, the tobacco industry has manipulated the potential of vaping products, thus damaging vaping’s reputation and sending regulators the wrong message that vaping should be treated the same as tobacco. Exhibit A: the World Vapers’ Alliance (WVA), a US-based lobbying organisation.
While consistently presenting itself as an independent grassroots movement “representing the interests of consumers” rather than industry, investigations into the WVA tell a markedly different story. According to the University of Bath’s eminent Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG), the WVA is closely linked to the tobacco industry through its creator and main financial backer, the Consumer Choice Center (CCC) – an organisation that has received funding from both PMI and BAT. Yet, the WVA’s Big Tobacco ties run much deeper.
From 2019 to 2022, the WVA website was managed by Red Flag Consulting, a lobbying firm linked to both the CCC and BAT. Internal communications obtained by a The Daily Beast investigation published in January 2022 revealed that BAT was actively involved in “orchestrating, directing and funding” WVA campaigns. Crucially, this probe exposed the WVA’s private admission that “it was presenting a false outward image” and producing “seemingly organic” letters to Dutch and EU lawmakers from supposed vaping “supporters.”
Furthermore, The Times reported in December 2023 that BAT executives received regular campaign updates from Red Flag, with the tobacco giant treating WVA as a “campaigning vehicle” to influence Brussels’s policymakers. These connections highlight the WVA’s role in the Big Tobacco’s broader shadowy lobbying efforts to shape regulations to its commercial interests under the guise of consumer rights. Indeed, disregard for transparency has been a consistent feature of the WVA’s EU advocacy.
Beyond running campaigns without disclosing supporters, the WVA was suspended from the EU Transparency Register in 2024 for failing to meet compliance standards. Despite this suspension, WVA has since unethically submitted a petition to the European Parliament and invited MEPs to a “tobacco harm reduction” event taking place on 2 July outside of the European Parliament, with reports suggesting that it has continued lobbying MEPs in defiance of the rules.
Nuanced vaping regulation for tobacco-free future
With new vaping rules emerging across EU member-states and in developing in Brussels, the possibility that policymakers wrongly associate the WVA – exposed by investigators as “the embodiment” of Big Tobacco’s astroturfing playbook – with the independent vaping industry poses a considerable threat to public health and balanced, evidence-based regulation. Contrary to popular belief, companies entirely separate from Big Tobacco account for roughly 70% of the vaping market.
When tobacco-funded groups dominate the narrative, regulators become more sceptical of all vape advocacy. This undermines the credibility of the industry unaffiliated with tobacco, which is genuinely committed to helping smokers switch to less harmful alternatives, and opens the door to excessive regulation that, while aimed at Big Tobacco, inevitably restricts access to vital tobacco cessation support.
In Europe, evidence of this unfortunate regulatory trend is already emerging, with Belgium and the Netherlands at the forefront of this movement. Both countries’ health ministers met on 27 May to discuss vaping regulations ahead of World No-Tobacco Day, with their support of blanket flavour bans entirely out of step with the vast body of research warning that such measures risk pushing vapers back to cigarettes – as already seen in the Netherlands – or dangerous black market products.
Moving forward, policymakers in Europe and around the world must draw a clear line between independent harm reduction efforts and tobacco-funded advocacy masquerading as consumer rights. Groups like the World Vapers’ Alliance do not speak for public health, but rather for the tobacco industry’s survival. Now is the time to unmask these tactics and progress vaping policy that provides smokers a sustainable pathway to a tobacco-free future.