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The Lebanese Regie state-owned tobacco monopoly: lessons to inform monopoly-focused endgame strategies

BACKGROUND: Many countries have started pursuing tobacco ‘endgame’ goals of creating a ‘tobacco-free’ country by a certain date. Researchers have presented models to attain this goal, including shifting the supply of tobacco to a monopoly-oriented endgame model (MOEM), wherein a state-owned entity c...

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Autores principales: Alaouie, Hala, Branston, J Robert, Bloomfield, Michael John
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9421117/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36038852
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13531-z
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author Alaouie, Hala
Branston, J Robert
Bloomfield, Michael John
author_facet Alaouie, Hala
Branston, J Robert
Bloomfield, Michael John
author_sort Alaouie, Hala
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Many countries have started pursuing tobacco ‘endgame’ goals of creating a ‘tobacco-free’ country by a certain date. Researchers have presented models to attain this goal, including shifting the supply of tobacco to a monopoly-oriented endgame model (MOEM), wherein a state-owned entity controls the supply and distribution of tobacco products. Although not designed to end tobacco use, the Regie in Lebanon exhibits some of the key features identified in MOEM and hence can serve as a practical example from which to draw lessons. METHODS: We comprehensively review previous literature exploring tobacco endgame proposals featuring a MOEM. We distil these propositions into core themes shared between them to guide a deductive analysis of the operations and actions of the Regie to investigate how it aligns (or does not) with the features of the MOEM. RESULTS: Analysing the endgame proposals featuring MOEM, we generated two main themes: the governance of the organisation; and its operational remit. In line with these themes, the investigation of the Regie led to several reflections on the endgame literature itself, including that it: (i) does not seem to fully appreciate the extent to which the MOEM could end up acting like Transnational Tobacco Companies (TTC); (ii) has only vaguely addressed the implications of political context; and (iii) does not address tobacco growing despite it being an important element of the supply chain. CONCLUSION: The implementation of tobacco endgame strategies of any type is now closer than ever. Using the Regie as a practical example allows us to effectively revisit both the potential and the pitfalls of endgame strategies aiming to introduce some form of monopoly and requires a focus on: (i) establishing appropriate governance structures for the organisation; and (ii) adjusting the financial incentives to supress any motivation for the organisation to expand its tobacco market.
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spelling pubmed-94211172022-08-30 The Lebanese Regie state-owned tobacco monopoly: lessons to inform monopoly-focused endgame strategies Alaouie, Hala Branston, J Robert Bloomfield, Michael John BMC Public Health Research BACKGROUND: Many countries have started pursuing tobacco ‘endgame’ goals of creating a ‘tobacco-free’ country by a certain date. Researchers have presented models to attain this goal, including shifting the supply of tobacco to a monopoly-oriented endgame model (MOEM), wherein a state-owned entity controls the supply and distribution of tobacco products. Although not designed to end tobacco use, the Regie in Lebanon exhibits some of the key features identified in MOEM and hence can serve as a practical example from which to draw lessons. METHODS: We comprehensively review previous literature exploring tobacco endgame proposals featuring a MOEM. We distil these propositions into core themes shared between them to guide a deductive analysis of the operations and actions of the Regie to investigate how it aligns (or does not) with the features of the MOEM. RESULTS: Analysing the endgame proposals featuring MOEM, we generated two main themes: the governance of the organisation; and its operational remit. In line with these themes, the investigation of the Regie led to several reflections on the endgame literature itself, including that it: (i) does not seem to fully appreciate the extent to which the MOEM could end up acting like Transnational Tobacco Companies (TTC); (ii) has only vaguely addressed the implications of political context; and (iii) does not address tobacco growing despite it being an important element of the supply chain. CONCLUSION: The implementation of tobacco endgame strategies of any type is now closer than ever. Using the Regie as a practical example allows us to effectively revisit both the potential and the pitfalls of endgame strategies aiming to introduce some form of monopoly and requires a focus on: (i) establishing appropriate governance structures for the organisation; and (ii) adjusting the financial incentives to supress any motivation for the organisation to expand its tobacco market. BioMed Central 2022-08-29 /pmc/articles/PMC9421117/ /pubmed/36038852 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13531-z Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Alaouie, Hala
Branston, J Robert
Bloomfield, Michael John
The Lebanese Regie state-owned tobacco monopoly: lessons to inform monopoly-focused endgame strategies
title The Lebanese Regie state-owned tobacco monopoly: lessons to inform monopoly-focused endgame strategies
title_full The Lebanese Regie state-owned tobacco monopoly: lessons to inform monopoly-focused endgame strategies
title_fullStr The Lebanese Regie state-owned tobacco monopoly: lessons to inform monopoly-focused endgame strategies
title_full_unstemmed The Lebanese Regie state-owned tobacco monopoly: lessons to inform monopoly-focused endgame strategies
title_short The Lebanese Regie state-owned tobacco monopoly: lessons to inform monopoly-focused endgame strategies
title_sort lebanese regie state-owned tobacco monopoly: lessons to inform monopoly-focused endgame strategies
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9421117/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36038852
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13531-z
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