The planned meeting on the Tobacco Convention, COP10, in Panama City has been canceled. This is announced by the WHO Secretariat for Tobacco Control on its website. The reason is riots in the host country Panama.
"Due to the unrest, the authorities cannot guarantee the safety of delegates. We will therefore postpone the conference to a later date in early 2024." WHO announces.
Unrest in Panama began after the conflict over a copper mine shook the country. Demonstrations in the capital degenerated on Wednesday and two people are reported to have been killed. The police have also used tear gas to disperse the crowds.
According to Swedish authorities, the Panamanian government expects the unrest to continue for several weeks. For the delegates from 180 countries who are on their way to Panama to attend COP10, the tenth meeting of the Tobacco Convention, this means changes to the plans. The meeting was due to take place at the end of November, but is now postponed.
"The meeting is still scheduled to take place in Panama, early 2024. But we will get back to you soon with more details", writes WHO on its website.
WHO plans for e-cigs and nicotine pouches
Although the tobacco convention meeting, also known as cop10, has not received much public media attention, there has been a lot of interest among activists, researchers and businesses who advocate harm reduction in tobacco policy.
This is because the WHO Secretariat for Tobacco Control is preparing changes to the content of the Convention that may affect access to, among other things e-cigarettes, snus and nicotine pouches. Critics say this could benefit the global cigarette trade.
"The WHO Secretariat for Tobacco Control has never recognized that harm reduction for smokers is a viable strategy to reduce the harms of nicotine use. On the contrary, they have been very hostile to new nicotine products such as e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches, but also the Swedish snus" says the writer and harm reduction activist Martin Culip in an interview about the upcoming COP10 meeting to media channel Regulator Watch
Calling on users to get involved
He has been urging vejpers and other smokeless nicotine product users to put pressure on their local politicians on the issue of harm reduction and COP10 this spring and summer.
"Delegates are often civil servants working under the directives they receive from their governments. It is important that the directive takes us, the consumers, into account, because we are the ones who will be affected by the decisions on the content of the tobacco convention", says Martin Culip.
"Want to change the definition of smoke"
According to the reports that WHO Secretariat for Tobacco Control published so far, both as a basis for discussion and as direct proposals for the meeting, show that the focus is on new nicotine products. More than cigarettes. And these are very serious measures," says Martin Culip.
"The idea is that e-cigarettes and heat-not-burn products, and indeed snus and nicotine pouches, should by definition be placed in the same compartment as cigarettes - and thus regulated in exactly the same way. One suggestion is to redefine what 'smoke' is. The convention is supposed to be about smoking tobacco only; that was the case when the convention was ratified by 180 countries in the past. Now they want to redefine the terms in the strangest ways, to avoid rewriting the convention: everything that looks like smoke should be smoke, even if it is vapor from an e-cigarette. And that's the end of the problem," says Martib Culip ironically.
Many reactions
Doctors, researchers studying nicotine addiction and politicians have also reacted to the reports published by the WHO ahead of the meeting in Panama, as Vejpkollen noted in several articles.
This is not the first time the WHO Secretariat for Tobacco Control has had to cancel its conferences. The last time was during the COVID-19 pandemic, when COP9 was due to take place in Geneva. It ended up being a virtual meeting where delegates had to make do with discussions over a link. Due to the difficulties, the Secretariat for Tobacco Control postponed the burning issues of new nicotine products on the future. The idea is now to discuss and decide on these products during COP10.
The Swedish delegation ready
Sweden will send a delegation from the Ministry of Social Affairs consisting of five people to COP10. The delegation will represent Sweden while many issues will be handled by a common EU line.
"An important starting point for the government is to protect the exception in EU law that allows snus to be sold on the Swedish market. Nicotine portions are not currently covered by EU legislation. As regards the decision-making procedure in the Council, the Government believes that consensus should be applied when it is permitted under EU law," writes the Minister for Social Affairs. Jacob Forssmed in a comment regarding the Swedish delegation's mission in Panama.
At the time of writing, the WHO Secretariat for Tobacco Control has not announced a new date for the meeting.
