Flavor bans, higher taxes, bans on open systems and disposable models. And strong measures to restrict access to nicotine pouches and snus. These are some of the measures that the WHO Secretariat for Tobacco Control wants to see included in the next version of the FCTC.
"The WHO focuses more on e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches than on curbing cigarette use. They don't care about protecting the alternatives that can improve smokers' health" says Lindsay Stroud, Tax Payers Alliance.
The tenth WHO meeting on tobacco convention, COP10The conference, originally scheduled for November 2023, will take place from 5 to 10 February 2024, had to be canceled due to complications in the host country Panama. The 1,500 delegates from the 190 countries that signed the convention had to kindly adapt and go to Panama City in February instead.
Activists and organizations from around the world will simultaneously organize an alternative conference in the margins of COP10. The aim is to draw attention to harm reduction products and alternative tools to reduce smoking worldwide.
"We want to highlight a different picture than the one painted by the WHO. Ultimately, it is consumers who have changed the market for nicotine products worldwide, not the measures advocated by the WHO. Tobacco companies have more or less been forced to change their offerings, from selling only cigarettes to launching less harmful products such as e-cigarettes and other smoke-free alternatives. This is how a free market works. Authorities supported by the WHO have been trying to do the same thing for ages without success." Says Lindsay Stroud, active in the organization Tax Payers Alliance, an independent think tank that organizes the alternative conference.
Getting tougher on harm reduction
According to the document sThe WHO Secretariat for Tobacco Control will present at the conference indicates that in the future it wants more products to be included in the directives on which the tobacco convention is based. The WHO's official position has long been that e-cigarettes and heat-not-burn products, but also modern nicotine pouches and Swedish snus, preferably be banned or are classified as medicines. I several statements, including via X (formerly Twitter), the practice is simply called "harmful" and urges the countries that have not already banned the products, to regulate them in the same way as cigarettes.
Conflict over nicotine and medicines
This has led to a conflict with some of the the countries that have signed the tobacco convention. Several major health organizations, such as American FDA and British Public Health Agency, emphasizes that vejping with nicotine is significantly less dangerous than smoking. For its part, the WHO states that all nicotine use by definition is harmful and should be regulated away as a matter of principle. At present, more than 100 million people e-cigarettes, snus or nicotine pouches worldwide.
"In countries where uptake is highest, cigarette use declines faster than in countries where products are either banned or severely restricted." recently noted addiction researcher Lion Shahab which facilitated the largest study to date on how alternative nicotine products relate to smoking worldwide.
Harm reduction or medicines
The ideological conflict over nicotine has created a deep conflict between, on the one hand, the WHO Tobacco Control Sector Secretariat, which believes that only medicines and various forms of therapy to be used in smoking cessation. On the opposite page is user organizations together with company and berowing researcher who argue that a regulated market for harm-reduction products is a more humane and effective way to reduce the adverse effects of smoking.
"Refuses to look at the issue scientifically"
Lindsay Stroud believes that WHO experts have lost, or perhaps rather ignored, the scientific perspective on the tobacco issue.
"The WHO has consistently refused to recognize that different nicotine products pose different risks to the population. The U.S. FDA is now, by its own admission, committed to providing more accurate information to the public about the relative risks of different forms of nicotine use. The misunderstanding among smokers about the differences in risk between vejpa and smoking is alarming. According to the risk ladder used by the FDA, cigarette smoking is by far the riskiest use, while the risks of nicotine replacement therapy are almost non-existent. E-cigarettes are just above nicotine replacement therapy in terms of risk. But the WHO refuses to even consider this. It's as if the scientific perspective has been completely lost" says Lindsay Stroud to the media channel Regelator Watch.
"A revolution driven by consumers"
E-cigarettes were long a product that lived a life of its own, via small independent businesses and consumer-driven trends. The technology originated in China and the market has grown exploded in the last 20 years. It was only when e-cigarettes began in earnest compete with cigarette sales as tobacco companies entered the market. Lindsay Stroud, who works on consumer issues but also statistics for the Tax Payers Alliance, says the development is one of the most astonishing she has ever seen.
"Vaping is a consumer-driven revolution, which has really had nothing to do with the tobacco companies. It has been very exciting to follow the development in recent years. The WHO says that tobacco companies are "trying to lure a new generation into addiction", but it's more a case of people who use nicotine for different reasons starting to make new demands. They eventually forced the tobacco companies to change." says Lindsay Stroud.
Taxes make states addicted to cigarettes
The problem, according to Lindsay Stroud, is that the WHO has a completely unreasonable attitude towards anything to do with tobacco companies. According to the Tobacco Convention, there is an automatic "irreconcilable conflict" between the interests of tobacco companies and public health, she says.
"Many tobacco companies want to reduce the risks of the products they sell, which is really in the interest of users. But the WHO doesn't care about that. Instead, it wants to limit the possibilities for change. Ironically, it advocates taxation as an effective tool to curb both cigarette sales and other nicotine products. In many countries, high taxes have only led to governments becoming dependent on the huge tax revenues generated by sales. They are unlikely to be particularly interested in removing cigarettes from the market, it would be too expensive. " says Linsdsay Stroud.
Industry must not have influence
Neither tobacco companies, consumer organizations nor individual activists advocating for a harm reduction perspective in tobacco policy are welcome to attend meetings on the tobacco convention. According to the WHO, this is due to an article in the convention that is supposed to "prevent influence" from the industry. Lindsay Stroud thinks this reasoning is flawed from the start.
"It's as if we were discussing solutions to the climate issue without inviting energy companies or car manufacturers into the conversation. Are greener cars from Toyota meaningless, just because Toyota has 'an interest' in selling cars?" says Lindsay Stroud.
A different picture of reality
From activists to scientists and doctors, the alternative conference will highlight harm reduction as a complement to the tobacco convention's prohibition measures. All to reduce the harm caused by smoking.
"We had a good turnout for the meeting in November and hope that the interest is as high now in February" says Lindsay Stroud. "We have experts and activists from 16 countries with us who can respond directly to what emerges at COP10. It is important to remember that neither consumers nor researchers who have a different view of reality than the WHO Secretariat for Tobacco Control are allowed inside the conference. Not even as an audience. This is TPA's way of promoting a different narrative, and something we have been looking forward to doing for years" says Lindsay Stroud.
All smoking is harmful, no matter how you get it in.
Idiotic cigarettes are much more dangerous than snus and e-cigs but they dare not bring it up. Absolutely insane