Tobacco Lobby: 'Do as We Say, Not as We've Done'
BAT's subsidiary in Zambia is allegedly pushing ministers to abandon or delay ad bans, health warnings, and flavor restrictions, measures commonplace in Western nations where the company operates. This isn't just 'hypocrisy'; it's a predictable corporate playbook: export the risk, import the profits. History shows industries routinely offload less ethical practices onto markets with weaker
regulations, especially in the Global South. Tobacco, pharmaceuticals, polluting manufacturing—the pattern is tediously consistent. It appears that what's deemed a necessary public health protection in London becomes an 'economic impediment' in Lusaka. How many more populations must serve as profit centers for products deemed too harmful for home consumption before we call this what it is:
exploitation, neatly cloaked in the language of 'market development'?