Tobacco industry accountability for marine pollution: country and global estimates.

Background: Commercial cigarette filters are single-use plastics and the main component of cigarette butts, the most common trash item collected worldwide. Governments bear the economic burden of managing the waste and the environmental pollution due to discarded filters and packages. Using available data sources, we estimate the economic burden of plastic tobacco waste on country economic groups.

TPPA and tobacco control: threats to APEC countries.

Background: Twelve-member countries of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) are negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), a free trade agreement to facilitate international trade and investment. As reported by multiple sources, the TPPA would grant the same trade benefits and legal protections to tobacco products, services and investments that it would provide to other sectors. Malaysia proposed excluding tobacco control measures from the scope of all TPPA chapters while the US proposed only to establish a consultation process in tobacco-related disputes and to declare that tobacco control measures serve a health objective within the scope of the general exceptions.