Health Impacts of Smuggling
- Smuggling is intended to give younger and poorer populations easier access to cigarettes than the duty paid market, thus contributing to the population of addicted consumers and overall mortality from smoking.
- BAT has used smuggling as a means to discourage governments from implementing policies intended to reduce smoking, including increased taxes on cigarettes.
- BAT's activities have supported the smuggling of narcotics (cocaine, crack and heroin) by providing tobacco products with which value may be returned to producer countries, and have thus assisted the rise of hard drug addiction.