2020 ASH Annual Report Released

The year 2020 brought much-needed attention to social justice and placed the right to health front and center in global public health. In a matter of months, we saw the world come to a halt because of the global COVID-19 pandemic, a pandemic that has made it even clearer that the marketing and selling of a lethal and addictive product like cigarettes put not only individuals at risk but nations’ health systems too.  Furthermore, it has become increasingly clear that the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the tobacco pandemic, disproportionately impact the most vulnerable members of society.

The ASH team and its allies around the world have been extremely active in 2020 to protect all of us from the harm caused by the tobacco industry. Because of social distancing restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 epidemic, we modified the way we work, but we did not skip a beat.

Read our full Annual Report here>

• Huber Statement: Brookline, MA Becomes 1st City in the U.S. to Ban Tobacco Sales to Anyone Born in the 21st Century
• Hidden Costs: The Economic Burden of Cigarette Smoking on U.S. Healthcare Spending
• Opposing Goals: The Tobacco Industry vs. Public Health
• The Tobacco Industry’s Impact on Child Exploitation Globally
• ASH Statement: Thanking the District of Columbia’s Mayor for Signing the Tobacco Product Flavor Ban Bill into Law
• ASH Statement on FDA’s Response in Favor of Banning Menthol
• Women, Tobacco, and Human Rights
• ASH is on TikTok, follow us here!
• Report: Cessation, The Right to Health
• Stay Tuned – later this month, ASH will release our U.S. Tobacco Lobbyist and Lobbying Firm Tracker, helping local advocates shine a light on who policymakers shouldn’t turn to for policy advice. Our 2021 U.S. Tobacco Industry Interference Index will release shortly after the tracker!

• Netherlands: Lidl stops selling cigarettes, tobacco with immediate effect
• Smoking and COVID-19 outcomes: an observational and Mendelian randomisation study using the UK Biobank cohort
• Pharma events bar Vectura after its takeover by Marlboro cigarette maker Philip Morris
• Philip Morris to Court ESG Investors Whose Mantra Is Shunning It
• Expose Tobacco unpacks British American Tobacco (BAT)’s internal documents suggesting they were engaged in potentially illegal activity in Africa, including a military-style surveillance operation to disrupt competitors & possible collusion with organized crime groups.
• You can smoke again in Pa.’s casinos and we’re worse off for it
• How to Reduce Racial Disparities in Smoking Deaths
• Big Tobacco’s price games undermine tobacco taxation
• How Does the Tobacco Industry Affect the Environment? New Brief Sheds Insight

Tobacco products remain the #1 preventable cause of death both in the U.S. and worldwide.

The actions of the tobacco industry – selling a product that kills more than 8 million people every year and attacking governments all over the world when they try to pass life-saving legislation to reduce smoking – are an obstacle to social justice and our collective right to health.

With your help, ASH can remain extremely active in protecting all of us from the harm caused by the tobacco industry. We fight the tobacco industry on every front. It’s grueling work, but that’s the only way to end the tobacco epidemic.

Please consider making a donation today to continue our work.

Thank you for making our work possible.