Debunking Tobacco Lies: UNDP–WHO Reveal the Real Costs of a Global Addiction

The 2025 joint report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Health Organization (WHO), Debunking Tobacco Industry Misinformation, backed by research from the American Cancer Society, the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Zambia School of Medicine, and the McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer, delivers a powerful takedown of the myths perpetuated by tobacco giants. Designed as both a reference guide and an advocacy tool, the report exposes how multinational corporations manipulate facts about the economy, employment, public health, and the environment to obstruct regulation, while societies pay the real price in disease, poverty, and pollution.

The Money Myth: How Taxes Save Lives and Economies

One of the industry's loudest claims, that raising tobacco taxes reduces government revenue, is proven false. Because tobacco demand is relatively inelastic, higher prices reduce consumption less than proportionally, increasing total revenue. The Philippines, for instance, doubled its health tax collection to USD 4.7 billion by 2019, channeling funds into universal health care and livelihood programs for farmers. In China, a 2015 tax increase added USD 11 billion to government coffers despite lower cigarette sales. Tobacco taxation, far from hurting economies, strengthens them by reducing medical costs and encouraging spending on essential goods. The report estimates that smoking-related diseases drain over USD 1 trillion annually from the global economy, mostly through lost productivity and healthcare expenses.

Busting the "Hurt the Poor" Argument

Tobacco companies frame taxes as unfair to low-income groups, yet evidence proves the opposite. Poorer populations are more responsive to price increases, so higher taxes help them quit or avoid smoking altogether. In Eswatini and Lao PDR, WHO investment cases show that more than half the lives saved through tobacco taxation belong to the poorest 40 percent of citizens. Meanwhile, wealthier smokers who continue to buy cigarettes bear a larger share of the tax. The report concludes that tobacco taxes are progressive tools that reduce health inequities and poverty rather than worsening them.

The same mythmaking extends to public spaces. The claim that smoke-free laws harm restaurants and bars has been repeatedly debunked. After Mexico City and New York City adopted comprehensive indoor smoking bans, employment and business revenues actually increased. Public approval soared too; over 80 percent of adults in Uruguay, Ukraine, Costa Rica, and Kenya support such measures. Scientific consensus confirms that designated smoking areas are useless: only full indoor bans can protect people from secondhand smoke, which causes 1.3 million deaths every year.

Farmers and False Promises

The tobacco industry presents itself as a pillar of rural livelihoods, but the report reveals widespread exploitation and debt among smallholder farmers. Research by the University of Zambia and the University of Illinois found that tobacco farmers often earn less than those growing other crops and face chronic losses due to exploitative contracts. In North Macedonia, 77 percent of farmers said they would abandon tobacco if subsidies ended. The Tobacco-Free Farms initiative in Kenya, developed with the FAO and WHO, offers a successful alternative: farmers who switched to beans earned higher profits and improved food security. Tobacco farming also fuels deforestation, accounting for 5 percent of global loss, and contaminates soil and water with chemicals such as ammonia, nicotine, and methanol. The crop's monoculture practice accelerates desertification, while cigarette butts add millions of tonnes of microplastics to oceans and waterways.

The Hidden Costs: Health, Law, and Deception

Beyond economics, the report uncovers the human toll of tobacco farming. Workers frequently suffer from Green Tobacco Sickness, a form of nicotine poisoning, and are exposed to banned pesticides such as DDT. Women and children often provide unpaid labor, losing opportunities for education or better livelihoods. The industry's supposed commitment to fighting illicit trade is also a façade. Investigations revealed that British American Tobacco and other companies have been complicit in smuggling their own products to evade taxes.

Equally deceptive are claims that plain packaging infringes on intellectual property rights. Courts in Australia, Uruguay, France, and the United Kingdom have all rejected such arguments. Studies confirm that plain packaging neither increases illicit trade nor violates trademark law. In Australia, illicit tobacco use has remained steady at around 3 percent since plain packaging began in 2012, proving the industry's fear campaign to be baseless.

The Truth About Youth and Advertising

The report highlights how the survival of the tobacco industry depends on targeting youth. Since up to half of smokers die from tobacco-related illness, companies invest heavily in marketing designed to hook new generations. The Global Youth Tobacco Survey found that more than half of adolescents across Europe encounter tobacco imagery in films, TV, or online platforms. Long-term studies in Mexico, Germany, and the United States show that teenagers exposed to smoking on screen are far more likely to become smokers. This, the report argues, is not a coincidence but a strategy, a deliberate effort to sustain addiction and profit.

The report portrays a global industry built on deceit, denial, and manipulation. Each myth, economic, social, or environmental, crumbles under the weight of evidence. Tobacco control measures such as taxation, advertising bans, smoke-free laws, and crop diversification emerge not as economic risks but as moral and developmental imperatives. The UNDP and WHO urge governments to expose these lies, resist industry interference, and protect both human health and planetary wellbeing. In doing so, they declare, countries can reclaim truth, justice, and the right to breathe clean air.