WHO calls for urgent action to ban flavoured tobacco, nicotine products
Flavours like menthol, bubble gum and cotton candy are masking the harshness of tobacco and nicotine products turning toxic products into youth-friendly bait. Flavours not only make it harder to quit but have also been linked to serious lung diseases. Cigarettes, which still kill up to half of their users, also come in flavours or can have flavours added to them.
'Flavours are fuelling a new wave of addiction, and should be banned,' said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO. 'They undermine decades of progress in tobacco control. Without bold action, the global tobacco epidemic, already killing around 8 million people each year, will continue to be driven by addiction dressed up with appealing flavours.'
The publication, Flavour accessories in tobacco products enhance attractiveness and appeal, reveals how flavours and accessories like capsule filters and click-on drops are marketed to bypass regulations and hook new users.
Currently, over 50 countries ban flavoured tobacco; more than 40 countries ban e-cigarette sales; 5 specifically ban disposables and 7 ban e-cigarette flavours; and flavour accessories remain largely unregulated.
Flavours are a leading reason why young people try tobacco and nicotine products. Paired with flashy packaging and social media-driven marketing, they've increased the appeal of nicotine pouches, heated tobacco, and disposable vapes into addictive and harmful products, which aggressively target young people.
WHO reiterates that tobacco products, including heated tobacco products, expose users to cancer-causing chemicals and should be strictly regulated.
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In France and Sweden, well over half of adult women work – 52 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively – and fertility rates remain higher than in most Muslim-majority countries with far lower female labour force participation. Some may point out that in addition to both of these countries having strong maternity leave and childcare support policies, a majority of births now occur outside of marriage (62 per cent in France, and 55 per cent in Sweden). This credits a flexible, non-traditional view of family structures with promoting fertility, and that is indeed true. Does that mean the Muslim world, where most – if not all – societies heavily favour traditional family structures centred on marriage, is doomed to choose between female employment or higher birth rates? The answer is no, and the key examples here are Bangladesh and Indonesia. 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But it's also clear that something is going right in Bangladesh and Indonesia, and wrong in Turkey. What explains the divergence? This is an important question to answer for the Islamic world, where, unlike France and Sweden, marriage is likely to remain the dominant path to having children. And marriage is a very relevant part of the answer, because the difference in the cost of entry to married life is, in fact, a major determinant of fertility. When marriage is high-cost and there is no alternative, childbearing becomes locked behind a prohibitively expensive institution. In Turkey, which has branded 2025 the 'Year of the Family' clearly out of concern for the declining birth rate, the first step into partnered adulthood has drifted out of reach. Youth unemployment stands at 18 per cent, and even those with jobs often rely on near-minimum wages. 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