Disease Control Centre condemns Tbilisi “tobacco promotion” event by Phillip Morris

The National Centre for the Disease Control of Georgia on Monday condemned a Tbilisi-hosted meeting involving international tobacco producer Philip Morris as a “tobacco promotion” event under the guise of harm reduction discussion.

Hosted at Radisson Blu Hotel on the same day, the meeting was entitled Tobacco Harm Reduction: Challenges and Opportunities in the 21st Century, and involved the company - a major international producer.

The NCDC called the meeting “outrageous” and said the “purpose of such meetings” was to promote and increase sales of the products rather than reduce harm. The statement also said the event was part of an effort to promote “new tobacco products” such as heated tobacco and E-cigarettes and present them as harm reduction opportunities for smokers as an “industry ploy” for preventing loss of relevance for involved companies on the market.

The national body also criticised participants of the event from the healthcare field, noting they “should know better” than participate in events whose actual aims “they should understand”. It also urged the public to refrain from organising, participating in and promoting such events, pointing out it facilitated the deepening of conflicts of interest between the tobacco industry and the health sector. 

In its statement, the Centre announced termination of “any cooperation” with organisations and individuals collaborating with the tobacco industry, and noted smoking, passive smoking and related conditions were one of the significant public health problems in Georgia, causing 11,400 annual deaths through tobacco-related diseases. 

On Monday, a number of doctors and students protested the scheduled event in Tbilisi, calling on the public not to become “distributors of death” by taking part and organising a “corridor of shame” for event organisers, local media outlet Interpressnews reported.