Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum

The Global Tobacco Nicotine Forum (GTNF) is an annual tobacco-industry funded event that typically takes place in September.¹²³

The event is described on the GTNF website as a “global exchange for views and ideas between public health experts, government representatives, the industry and investors.”¹

Known until 2014 as the Global Tobacco Networking Forum, the event was rebranded in 2015 to “reflect our industry’s expanding perspectives”.⁴ It should not be confused with the Global Forum on Nicotine (GFN).

Background

Originally the Global Tobacco Networking Forum

The Global Tobacco Networking Forum was first held in 2008 in Rio de Janeiro, and was organized by Tobacco Reporter magazine, which described the event as “quite simply the greatest interactive tobacco industry idea exchange on earth”.⁵

Owners and Organisers

The event was founded and is directed by Elise Rasmussen, who has been Vice President at the US-based organisation the Tobacco Merchants Association (TMA) since 2008.⁶

David O’Reilly from British American Tobacco (BAT) was the co-founder and first Chair of the GTNF advisory board.⁷

In January 2019, TMA acquired SpecComm International and its assets, which included GTNF.⁸ Under the acquisition deal, TMA created a new division called The GTNF Trust which operates and manages the GTNF Conference.⁹¹⁰¹¹

In February 2025, TMA rebranded as the Nicotine Resource Consortium and incorporated ‘The GTNF Trust’ into its new identity.¹²

Sponsored by Tobacco Companies

Image 1: The sponsors of GTNF included all the four major tobacco companies³

Since its beginning in 2008, GTNF has been sponsored by big transnational tobacco companies. In 2025, sponsors listed its website included Imperial Brands, Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International, Altria ,Reynolds American (RAI), and other companies in tobacco supply chain (Image 1).³

Delegates can attend in person, or virtually.¹³  Representatives of tobacco and vapor/nicotine industries, retailers, media and civil society members are invited to register.¹³¹⁴

Activities and Themes

Harm reduction

2017: Derek Yach, former Head of the World Health Organization’s Tobacco Free Initiative, launched a new foundation funded by Philip Morris International and aimed at “accelerating an end to smoking”. To read more about this organisation, go to the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World.

2021: the GTNF Trust launched its ‘IN FOCUS’ event series which runs separately from the main GTNF event. The online half-day conference takes place every spring.¹⁵ The 2021 theme was ‘Tobacco Harm Reduction’.¹⁶

2022: the theme was ‘Sustainability’.¹⁷

• See the long read Unsustainable: Big Tobacco’s use of the UN SDGs and Greenwashing.

2023: organisers gave the upcoming COP10 – the two-yearly meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) – as a reason for again choosing this theme. The website stated that the 2023 IN FOCUS event “brought together thought leaders and commentators from across the world to give us their views and debate the way ahead”.¹⁵

• See Harm Reduction for more on how the industry uses this concept to further its commercial goals and undermine public health.

2024: the theme focused on ‘Nicotine’, with the panel discussing “nicotine misinformation, and its impact on consumer understanding”¹⁸

2025: in the run-up to COP11, the event adopted the theme ‘Real World Evidence: The Race to Reduce Harm’. One session was titled “FCTC/COP What Role Does the Global Framework Play in Today’s Regulatory Environment?”.¹⁹²⁰

Speakers

Keynote speakers have included:

• James Murphy, Director of Research and Science at BAT
• Elaine Round, Global Head of Toxicology at BAT
• Riccardo Polosa
• Delon Human
• Derek Yach, former President of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (now Global Action to End Smoking)

Other speakers who have or have had links to the tobacco industry include:
Patrick Basham Erik Bloomquist Simon Clark Sinclair Davidson Jamie Dettmer Katherine Graham Angela Harbutt Delon Human Mark Littlewood John Luik Des Naughton Paul Neumann Christopher Ogden David O’Reilly Riccardo Polosa Carl V Phillips Michiel Reerink Brad Rodu Christopher Snowdon Spiked Jeff Stier Kingsley Wheaton

For a comprehensive list of speakers, go to the specific pages of each annual GTNF events (below).

Code of Conduct

Originally, the GTNF had a code of conduct which contained clauses forbidding discussions or presentations being recorded, or information about the content of sessions being published.⁵

In 2015, the Code of Conduct was replaced by Chatham House Rules, which stated that participants were free to use the information received but that “neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any participant, may be revealed”.²¹

Tobacco Tactics Resources

• Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum 2025
• Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum 2024
• Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum 2023
• Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum 2022
• Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum 2021
• Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum 2020
• Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum 2019
• Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum 2018
• Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum 2017
• Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum 2016
• Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum 2015
• Global Tobacco Networking Forum 2014
• Global Tobacco Networking Forum 2013
• Global Tobacco Networking Forum 2012
• Global Tobacco Networking Forum 2010
• British American Tobacco
• David O’Reilly
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World