Author: Eline Goethals, The School for Moral Ambition
The tobacco industry’s products kill 7 million people annually while generating $880 billion in revenue—more than Google, Meta, and Apple combined. Despite decades of tobacco control progress, the industry is adapting faster than regulations can evolve, pivoting to new nicotine products while maintaining their addiction-based business model.
The time has come to move from controlling tobacco to eliminating the industry entirely.
The problem: The industry operates like a Hydra—when advertising was restricted, they shifted to digital marketing. When cigarettes faced regulation, they pivoted to e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches. Traditional tobacco control was never designed to eliminate the tobacco industry itself. By focussing on controlling rather than eliminating tobacco products, advocates are doing exactly what the industry wants: giving them the space to establish new nicotine markets.
The solution: The “tobacco endgame” represents a fundamental shift from reducing harm to permanently ending the source of harm. This report defines tobacco endgame as “a concrete plan to end all activities of the tobacco industry with a specific timeline and strategy tailored to each region’s needs.” Far from being utopian, countries including New Zealand, Ireland, and Finland have already set ambitious elimination targets with specific dates.
Strong public support already exists: on average 72% of the public supports phasing out commercial cigarette sales, and 71% of Dutch youth believe the nicotine industry should not be allowed to exist.
The gap isn’t in public willingness, it’s in awareness that elimination is achievable through policy.
Read the Report: Making Tobacco Industry Elimination Inevitable: Communications Strategies to Reach the Tobacco Endgame
The challenge: Current tobacco endgame messaging suffers from three critical weaknesses: inconsistent definitions, lack of cohesive narrative and limited awareness of the full range of endgame strategies.
The strategies: This report provides 14 strategic recommendations for more effective tobacco endgame communication to build political will. The recommendations address how advocates can better coordinate internally, engage policymakers directly, and normalize the concept publicly – all working toward the same goal of making tobacco industry elimination politically inevitable.
Key actions: Position endgame as targeting all nicotine products. Focus on the industry as the culprit. Use “realistic” language, never “radical.” Always lead with evidence of overwhelming public support. Frame each policy by how it eliminates industry power.
The imperative: Tobacco industry elimination is inevitable. Their business model depends on addiction and deception. As long as this remains intact, the industry will continue finding new ways to create and maintain addiction. The tools, evidence, and public support for tobacco endgame exist. What’s needed now is coordinated messaging to make tobacco industry elimination inevitable. The century of profiting from addiction is over. The tobacco and nicotine industry must be done.
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