Press Release: ATCA and CSO’s ask Google to ban apps that encourage purchase and consumption of smoking and vaping products

The Africa Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA) and 178 other Civil Society Organizations have made a call to Google to implement a policy that forbids applications on the Google Play store that support the buying and consumption of smoking and vaping products. The call is made in line with the view that vaping products are being heavily and falsely promoted in Africa as “safer alternatives” to smoking and hence there is need to eliminate advertising of such products within a platform as large as Google Play.

Leonce Sessou, ATCA’s Executive Secretary points out that, “Africa is already bearing huge health and socioeconomic burdens brought about by the tobacco industry. Children are heavily targeted with aggressive marketing of cigarettes by Big Tobacco companies, and the introduction of new technology tobacco products is making a bad situation worse.” As such Google is encouraged to follow several other tech giants like Apple and Amazon who have already adopted this policy.

Click here for the official statement from ACTA.