We are pleased to support this sixth edition of the ASEAN Tobacco Control Atlas, which continues to serve as a valuable resource to inform, guide, and inspire policy makers, advocates, and tobacco control stakeholders across ASEAN. The Atlas stands as a testament to the commitment and collaborative efforts of many in combating tobacco use in the region.

We are honoured to have a decade-long partnership with the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) and its network of partners across Southeast Asia, whose unwavering dedication, advocacy and expertise have been instrumental in preventing tobacco-related death and disease in the region. The Atlas highlights these critical advancements aligned with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control:

• Smoke-free public places: More countries are enforcing comprehensive smoke-free laws, though challenges remain in designated smoking areas and law enforcement.
• Plain/standardized packaging: Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Singapore have all moved forward on this ground breaking policy, prohibiting marketing on tobacco packaging.
• Pictorial health warnings: All ten ASEAN countries use pictorial health warnings, with five countries having some of the largest warnings in the world.
• Bans on tobacco advertising: Most countries have fairly comprehensive national bans on tobacco advertising, with a few exceptions still allowing certain sales practices that make cigarettes accessible to youth.

Full implementation of these policies will not only reduce tobacco use but will in turn have a cascading effect on social, environmental, and economic development more broadly, and play a vital role in protecting the next generation from the harms of tobacco. As we look ahead, it is crucial that governments remain vigilant and proactive in their efforts. The ASEAN community continues to be a prime target for tobacco industry growth, with an astonishing 479.1 billion cigarettes purchased in 2022. Together, we can keep up the momentum in the region, accelerating further progress to create a healthier future for all ASEAN citizens.

You might think that, after having written an invited preface to five previous editions of the ASEAN Tobacco Control Atlas published since 2013, that there was little more to say in this 6th edition. How wrong.

We know that there is no quick fix to the tobacco epidemic, but the good news is that in comparison with earlier editions, there has been a slow but steady improvement in monitoring the tobacco epidemic, comprehensive smoke-free laws, pictorial pack warnings, tax policies and bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.

But this 6th edition of the Atlas also documents the increasing and appalling behaviour of the tobacco industry, documented in even greater detail in successive Tobacco Industry Interference Indexes. This Atlas clearly shows that the real enemy of smokers is not the tobacco control advocates, but the tobacco industry itself, luring them to use a deadly and addictive product. In addition, the industry strongly promotes newer products like e-cigarettes and Heated Tobacco Products and opposes control measures on these products. This is the third time in history they have erroneously claimed they had a ‘safer cigarette,’ the previous two occasions being low tar cigarettes and filter cigarettes, which also did nothing to protect the smoker. The World Health Organization has identified the tobacco industry as the biggest threat to reducing tobacco use. Tobacco control in ASEAN will not be successful until governments put a stop to this pervasive industry interference.

In contrast, tobacco control agencies – whether governments or non-governmental associations like SEATCA - are the smokers’ friends, promoting a variety of measures, to reduce youth smoking and help adult smokers to quit. I have never yet met a smoker who does not regret starting smoking, usually well below the age of 20 years. They recognise smoking as a harmful, addictive and expensive habit and do not want their children to start tobacco use.

With the publication of this 6th edition, the series of Tobacco Control ASEAN Atlases is now established as a valuable source of information for the 10 ASEAN countries. The stunningly simple, colourful, graphic format - based on sound data giving visual comparisons between countries - is immediately understandable.

The Atlas does not just track the tobacco epidemic; it is a challenge and a call to countries in the region to step up action - now.

In the rapidly changing landscape of ASEAN, tobacco remains a major challenge with its negative impacts on public health, the economy, the environment, and society. In line with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ASEAN Member States have implemented a wide range of measures to reduce tobacco use. These are well captured in the ASEAN Tobacco Control Atlas and include raising awareness about the dangers of tobacco use, implementing pictorial health warnings and standardized/plain packaging on tobacco products, smoke-free environment campaigns, banning tobacco advertisement, promotion, and sponsorship, promoting tobacco cessation, instituting hefty taxes on tobacco products, and dedicating tobacco tax revenues to health promotion and tobacco control. Despite these efforts, tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of disease and death in the ASEAN region.

Guided by the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Blueprint 2025, ASEAN envisions a healthy, caring, and sustainable Community. Therefore, ASEAN Member States must step up to the tobacco challenge. We must move more quickly to strengthen and implement current tobacco control policies, particularly noting that the region is being flooded by the tobacco industry with newer products, such as e-cigarettes, heated tobacco, and nicotine pouches, that sustain nicotine addiction and contribute to diseases and deaths among our peoples. We must stay alert to various tactics employed by the industry to protect its profits and to circumvent tobacco control laws and regulations, even to the extent of exploiting developing economies such as in Lao PDR. These tactics include supposed economic investments, so-called corporate social responsibility projects, the use of front groups, and even legal challenges to delay, hinder, or undermine tobacco control efforts. It is imperative that ASEAN Member States continue to take decisive, innovative, and strategic action to accelerate progress in tobacco control to protect the health and well-being of all people.

This sixth edition of the ASEAN Tobacco Control Atlas offers valuable information and insights into the latest tobacco control developments within the ASEAN region, providing up-to-date, reliable, and comparable data. It is a critical resource for policymakers, government agencies, civil society organizations, and other partners of ASEAN Member States seeking to craft innovative and effective tobacco control policies, programs, interventions, and partnerships to protect and promote public health in ASEAN.

Additionally, the Atlas is a crucial reference for further shaping regional cooperation in tobacco control as the ASEAN Health Sector finalizes its work program for the next five years, working towards achieving the SDGs and the global target of a 30% relative reduction in tobacco use prevalence by 2030.

On behalf of the ASEAN Health Cluster, I would like to express our appreciation for the valuable contributions of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA), a strong technical partner of the ASEAN Health Cluster since 2011. We look forward to continued and expanded cooperation with SEATCA through the ASEAN Post-2015 Health Development Agenda and the ASEAN Health Cluster 1 on Promoting Healthy Lifestyles. We extend special thanks to SEATCA for its collaboration and support to Lao PDR on the ASEAN Smoke-free Award (ASA) launched at the 16th ASEAN Health Ministers Meeting to recognize subnational governments that have demonstrated significant leadership in the implementation of effective smoke-free policies ‘Towards a Smoke-free ASEAN’.

Congratulations to SEATCA and all its partners for producing this outstanding work.

SEATCA is pleased to publish this sixth edition of the ASEAN Tobacco Control Atlas. In these pages, readers will appreciate both the extent and impact of the tobacco industry’s invasion into ASEAN societies and the various actions taken by ASEAN Member States in accordance with the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), which remains the globally recognized minimum standard for all governments that are serious about reducing tobacco use, saving lives, and promoting public health.

Since the 5th edition of the atlas, Singapore’s adult smoking prevalence has dropped to 9.2%, currently the lowest in ASEAN (Congratulations, Singapore!), and this was achieved without promoting e-cigarettes as smoking cessation aids (as has been done in England, without any population-level impact on smoking prevalence). In fact, Singapore has remained firm in its ban on electronic smoking devices, as have Brunei, Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Thailand, in the face of fierce lobbying to reverse the ban by the industry and its front groups, who are basically proponents of nicotine addiction by promoting e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products, and nicotine pouches as so-called “tobacco harm reduction”.

Another bit of good news is that Lao PDR is the 4th Asian country (after Thailand, Singapore, and Myanmar) to require standardized tobacco packaging after its health minister issued the Standardized Packaging Regulation shortly before this year’s World No Tobacco Day. Lao PDR may even be the third in Asia to implement this, since Myanmar’s government gave in to industry pressure and postponed its standardized tobacco packaging enforcement three times from 10 April 2022 to 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2023 to 31 December 2024 (sad but true!).

An “almost” world-second would have been Malaysia’s Generational End Game (GEG) policy, which would have banned the sale of tobacco and recreational nicotine products to anyone born after 2006. This was proposed by then Malaysian health minister Khairy Jamaluddin in January 2022, after New Zealand announced a similar “Smoke-free Generation” policy banning purchase of cigarettes for those born after 2008.

While New Zealand went on to pass the smoke-free generation policy in amendments of its tobacco control law in 2022, Malaysia’s GEG bill languished and was eventually dropped in 2023, soon after New Zealand’s new government announced it would repeal the tobacco control law amendments passed the year before.

Still, this gives us hope, as the tobacco endgame is no longer an aspiration but an achievable reality within our lifetime. In fact, in 2021, the town of Brookline in Massachusetts, USA passed a law banning the sale of any tobacco product (including ESD) to anyone born since 1 January 2000, and after that Tobacco-Free Generation (TFG) law was upheld unanimously by the Massachusetts Supreme Court earlier this year, two other Massachusetts towns (Wakefield and Stoneham) passed similar laws in March 2024. Maybe it’s about time for Balanga City in the Philippines to continue its legal appeal for its TFG city ordinance, which the industry challenged in court in 2018. Check out Chapter 11 of the atlas for those details.

We thank our SEATCA teammates and all our country partners from all 10 ASEAN countries for their time and efforts to help make this 6th edition a reality. It stands as a witness to both the gains and the challenges to national, regional, and global tobacco control and is a testament to the diligence and persistence of dedicated and passionate public health advocates (particularly our ASEAN country partners). It is also a manifesto against the diabolical tobacco industry and all those that further its profit-driven interests.

We hope that, like past editions of the atlas, this sixth one will be as informative and even more useful in accelerating political actions to achieve the tobacco endgame sooner than later.