Substance Use and Public Health: Bridging Gaps through Policy, Practice, and Partnerships
Dr. Manuja Perera, a member of the department was a panellist in a plenary session in the Global Public Health Summit 2025 under the theme "Substance Use and Public Health: Bridging Gaps through Policy, Practice, and Partnerships". The session was organised by the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board (NDDCB), to showcase the current challenges and solutions for substance use prevention and the importance to strengthen partnerships among different stakeholders. This plenary session included a panel discussion in which Dr. Manuja Perera spoke about “Prohibited tobacco products, nicotine addiction and related industry tactics”. In the panel discussion, she highlighted the importance of keeping up with the global strategies on “Tobacco Endgame”, that is, eliminating nicotine addiction.
She stressed that the tobacco industry is not giving up easily, and that they are using tactics such as flavoured products, product innovations and interference in policies and control actions to fight this global movement. She spoke about the role their “new products” serve to sustain nicotine addiction and highlighted how it includes nicotine replacement therapy as well, accentuating how the industry is pretending to be the solution for the problem they have generated. She emphasised that tobacco industry propagating misinformation, manipulating science and interfering in effective policy development and implementation prevent the progress of evidence-based, impactful, tobacco endgame strategies. Dr Perera stressed on the need for strengthening the enforcement of existing rules and regulations as well as involving young people in tobacco control to win the “tobacco endgame”. This session was held on 14th of July 2025 at the Hilton Hotel Residencies Colombo.
