Uruguay has reaffirmed its longstanding commitment to public health by reinstating tobacco control measures that ban the sale of heated tobacco products and mandate plain packaging for cigarettes.
The Minister of Health announced the change in June, restoring the lifesaving policies after a series of decrees in recent years that had weakened tobacco control in the country.
“In 2022, the international tobacco control community raised their voice to denounce the setback in public tobacco control policy that those decrees represented,” said Gustavo Sóñora, Vital Strategies’ Regional Director, Latin America for Tobacco Control expressed, “We are pleased and grateful to see Uruguay return to its role as a leader in tobacco control policy.”
The policy reversals began in 2021, when Uruguay approved an Executive Decree allowing the sale of heated tobacco products, which were previously banned. The following year, under a grant from Vital Strategies’ Tobacco Industry Interference program, Uruguay’s first digital news platform dedicated to investigative journalism, Cooperativa de Trabajo Sudestada, produced an investigation, “Smoke by Decree” (Humo por Decreto). The investigation revealed that the government deliberately ignored the opinion of experts from academia, scientific societies and international organizations and instead favored of decrees that were aligned with the commercial strategy of Philip Morris. The investigation alleges that the previous government was pressured by Philip Morris International to commercialize heated tobacco products.
In 2022, the government issued a decree that weakened the country’s plain packaging policy, which was implemented in 2019. National and international organizations denounced the move and called on the Uruguayan government to revoke the decree, prompting a response from scientific societies, academics and tobacco control groups.
Cooperativa de Trabajo Sudestada received a WHO World No Tobacco Day award in June recognizing their work to expose the industry’s influence over public health policy in Uruguay and the industry’s strategies to prevent lifesaving efforts. The recognition aligned with this year’s World No Tobacco Day theme, “Unmasking the Appeal: Exposing Industry Tactics on Tobacco and Nicotine Products,” calling attention to the deceptive strategies used by the tobacco industry to market, especially to youth, and expand the reach of their harmful products.
To learn more about Vital Strategies’ Tobacco Control work, visit: www.vitalstrategies.org/tobacco-control/