Author: Aidan Semmens

After the opening question, “Have you ever used cannabis?” came the follow-up: “Do you think it did you any harm?” To which my honest answer was: “Yes. It got me hooked on tobacco”…

While no industry, from aviation to mining, farming to fishing, can pretend to be uninvolved in the major growing issue of the environment, the tobacco industry is as inescapably bound up in the debate as any other…

It’s an awkward complication in any global narrative about fairness, equality and social responsibility, that an awful lot of people in mostly lower-income countries owe their livelihoods to growing tobacco…

While statistics are vital to understanding our world, they are often misunderstood – and that can be important when it comes to forming opinions and laws on controversial issues such as tobacco…

While not related solely or specifically to tobacco products, novel or otherwise, moves in both the EU and the US towards environmental regulations are likely to have a major impact on the sector…

Is Dave Dobbins’s switch from COO of the Truth Initiative to a role with a tobacco company a case of gamekeeper turned poacher – or is there another interpretation we can put on it?…

Correlation is not causation, but it’s tempting to see a meaningful pattern in figures showing that US adults (particularly the younger ones) are smoking less tobacco and using more cannabis…

Jennifer Motles, chief sustainability officer for PMI, has urged companies of all kinds to go beyond seeing ESG (environmental, social and governance) impact reporting as a tick-box exercise…

The latest financial report from Japan Tobacco International tells a tale that should make bedroom and boardroom reading for government officials, public health departments and regulators everywhere…

Trust a politician to come up with a memorable soundbite, a catchy slogan or a simple statement that leaps out at you from the headlines. Top prize this week to Malaysia’s health minister Khairy Jamaluddin…

A no-doubt well-meaning ballot measure enthusiastically taken up by voters just 18 months ago now has General Assembly members in the US state of Colorado tied up in a knot of their own making…

Whatever the motives behind it, punitive or would-be persuasive taxation has many of the same drawbacks as prohibition…

New Zealand has designated a cohort of young people – those who will be 14 or younger when the government’s proposed law comes into effect – who will never be old enough to smoke…

It’s the end of an era as tobacco sponsorship of Formula One racing comes to an end – again. Or does it and is it?…

The World Health Organization (WHO) has published its eighth report on “the global tobacco epidemic”, which places a new emphasis on “new and emerging products”…

A new study by researchers from the Luiss Business School in Rome and Deloitte comes to an unexpected and counterintuitive conclusion…

Apart from the obvious, what has 2020 brought us? And in particular, what has it brought to the world of alternative tobacco and tobacco alternatives?…