Dalla Lana School of Public Health

This seminar will focus on better understanding the cross-cutting strategies that health-harming industries employ to impact public health policies.

Benoit Gomis: The illicit trade in legal drugs is often seen as a law enforcement issue. Focusing on the case studies of tobacco and cannabis, Benoît Gomis will demonstrate it is also a significant public health challenge, in which transnational corporations are playing a major part. The tobacco industry has often been directly involved or complicit in smuggling their own products, while playing a central but dubious role in shaping research, policy making, and law enforcement practices on the topic. Major Canadian cannabis companies are increasingly mimicking some Big Tobacco tactics, in the name of anti-illicit trade and at the expense of public health.

Joana Lima Madureira will discuss a framework to systematically study corporations and other commercial interests as a distal, structural, societal factor that causes disease and injury. Our framework offers a systematic approach to mapping corporate activity, allowing us to anticipate and prevent actions that may have a deleterious effect on population health.

For information on how to join the session please email publichealthpolicy@utoronto.ca