Raglan Maddox, Michelle Scollo, Kylie Lindorff, and Melissa Jones
Language is powerful. It shapes community perceptions as well as academic, media, and political narratives. Through this mechanism, it influences political appetite for particular programs and policies.
The Tobacco Industry sells a product that is not only uniquely dangerous but also highly addictive and which can be financially crippling for users and their families. The industry also deploys loaded, misleading language, manipulated data, and selective framing to distract from the fundamental injustice of this situation.
Precision in language is essential to accurately define the commercial tobacco and nicotine epidemic, design effective solutions, and hold those accountable who continue to profit while perpetuating addiction, poverty, disease, and the early deaths of approximately 8 million people globally each year.
What’s in a word? More than we might think.
Language is a powerful tool that shapes public health narratives, policies, and perceptions. Precision in language is vital, particularly when tackling the Tobacco and Nicotine Industry, including manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers.
The Tobacco Industry profits from selling addiction, poverty, disease, and death while using misleading terms to deflect blame and evade accountability.
There has been considerable progress in reducing smoking prevalence, including among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, highlighting the power of community leadership and systemic interventions. However, challenges like illicit trade in tobacco persist. And the way we address — and refer to — such issues does matter.
Why language matters
The Tobacco Industry has a long and ongoing history of using language to deflect blame and resist accountability.
For example, tobacco companies frame illicit trade in tobacco as a problem somehow confined to the criminal underworld, shifting focus away from the fact that it is predominantly ‘High Street’ tobacco retailers that are selling tobacco products on which duties have not been paid – and from their own culpability in manufacturing a product that causes addiction, poverty, disease, and death.
Industry collaborators have pushed this narrative aggressively, positioning illicit trade in tobacco as justification for cutting tobacco taxes. The media’s preference for high-drama stories — such as criminal gangs and firebombing linked to illicit trade in tobacco — has further enabled the industry’s arguments to gain traction.
These stories, dubbed the ‘tobacco wars’, dominate headlines, creating more opportunities for the industry and its allies to push their demands for tax cuts and an end to excise increases. This shifts focus away from the industry’s own participation in illicit retailing and its role in reducing the effectiveness of tax policy through aggressive pricing strategies and product proliferation.
Terms like “black market” are used strategically to oppose public health measures such as excise taxes or plain packaging. These terms also carry racialised connotations, stigmatise individuals, and obscure the structural causes behind illicit trade of commercial tobacco and vaping products.
In contrast, “illicit trade in tobacco” is precise, and focuses on conduct rather than individuals and communities. Poor framing deflects blame on individuals, communities, and population groups, and diverts attention from the Tobacco Industry’s active role in perpetuating harms.
It also shifts focus to the product (for example, black market tobacco) and away from the systemic issue of illicit trade of commercial tobacco and vapes driven by industry practices.
Vague, imprecise or exaggerated language muddies the waters, preventing accurate and effective assessment of progress.
Frameworks such as the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and the Illicit Trade Protocol emphasise conduct over stigmatising terms.
These international guidelines do not use the term “black market”. Neither do they rely on the shorthand “illicit tobacco”. The focus is firmly on conduct, with illicit trade in tobacco defined as: “any practice or conduct prohibited by law and which relates to production, shipment, receipt, possession, distribution, sale or purchase, including any practice or conduct intended to facilitate such activity.”
Reclaiming the narrative
Public health professionals, government agencies, the media, and communities must use language that promotes systemic solutions rather than perpetuating stigma and blame. This includes challenging how the industry manipulates media narratives to influence public opinion and policymakers.
By framing the issue accurately, we can better assess progress, refine strategies, and hold the Tobacco and Nicotine Industry accountable.
Avoid stigmatising terms by replacing “black market” with “illicit trade in tobacco” and use person-centred language like “people who smoke”. It’s also important to focus on structural drivers of addiction and the illicit trade in tobacco, highlighting systemic issues, including the role of the Tobacco Industry and their collaborators, policy gaps, inequities, and inequalities.
Public health professionals must take the lead in ensuring that the Tobacco Industry does not control the terms of the debate.
Using precise terms such as “illicit trade in tobacco” focuses efforts on systemic solutions, helps to hold the Tobacco Industry accountable, and avoids perpetuating stigma. Precision in language is not just about clarity — it is about justice, equity, and progress in public health.
Associate Prof Raglan Maddox, (Bagumani (Modewa) Clan, Papua New Guinea), works at Yardhura Walani (a ‘strong, healthy place” in Ngunnawal language), National Centre for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Wellbeing Research, at The Australian National University.
Dr Michelle Scollo works at the Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer, Cancer Council of Victoria.
Ms Kylie Lindorff and Ms Melissa Jones work at Cancer Council NSW.
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