The scandal of big tobacco’s behaviour in the developing world

That big tobacco hinders the adoption of anti-smoking legislation is no surprise. Your leader correctly identifies the best route to behavioural change – shareholder pressure – but does not highlight the key channel to achieve this. Big tobacco needs to diversify. This is where shareholder pressure should be applied: to encourage manufacturers and associated leaf merchants to invest in non-harmful products and speed up the process of product diversification. In addition, governments in the south and their development partners should work with manufacturers and merchants to reduce big tobacco’s own addiction to the evil weed.