MORE restrictive policies such as bans and higher taxes on smoke-free products discourage the switch from smoking and obstruct the objective of tobacco harm reduction which is to save more than a billion smokers globally, public health and consumer advocates said during the Global Forum on Nicotine 2022.
In a panel discussion during the GFN 2022 held in Warsaw, Poland, Norbert Schmidt, a software developer and member of the German vaping consumers organization IG-ED, said the proposed vape tax calculations in Germany would be detrimental for vapers.
“These tax levels will render them more expensive than cigarettes, thus discouraging a lot of smokers from switching. Many vapers will evade to a black market, try their luck with DIY, or return to smoking,” said Schmidt.
Vapes (e-cigarettes), nicotine pouches, Swedish snus and heated tobacco products (HTPs) are among the alternative nicotine products identified during the GFN 2022. These products have been shown in multiple independent and international research studies to be significantly less harmful than smoking tobacco.
Federico N. Fernández, executive director of Argentina-based Somos Innovación, said that while vaping and other alternatives are options that could end the problem of smoking, more stringent regulations are imposed on the smoke-free products than on combustible cigarettes which they are supposed to replace.
Dr. Roberto Sussman, of the National University of Mexico, also laments that “anti-vaping sources such as the World Health Organization (WHO), academics, regulators, anti-tobacco NGOs, groups funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies act as merchants of doubt when citing and quoting flawed studies to cast unjustified doubt and confusion on the safety of vaping.”
There are likewise groups in the Philippines that continue to call for the ban on smoke-free alternatives, which are found by science to be less harmful than cigarettes.
Marc Gunther, a journalist who writes about philanthropy and tobacco control policy, said specifically that Bloomberg Philanthropies’ crusade against vaping is doing more harm than good.
Bloomberg Philanthropies, which was founded in 2006 by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, has funded programs to encourage many low and middle-income countries (LMICs) to ban e-cigarettes. Its anti-tobacco initiative covers 112 countries, with a focus on the world’s largest smoking populations including China, India, Indonesia and Bangladesh.
Bloomberg Philanthropies donated millions of dollars to the WHO, which offers policy advice and technical assistance to governments of LMICs.
Gunther said WHO’s messaging around e-cigarettes is one-sided, misleading and harmful.
“The WHO somehow manages to confuse people about questions that should be settled by now — the fact the e-cigarettes are less dangerous than cigarettes, the fact that e-cigarettes had nothing to do with the outbreak of EVALI, the fact that vaping can help people who want to quit smoking,” he said.
“The issue is complicated, but I don’t think it is too hard to reach an evidence-driven policy that balances the needs of adult smokers with the risks to kids: Make vapes available to adults, double down on efforts to keep them out of the hands of young people and most importantly, tell the truth about the science,” said Gunther.
Participants in GFN 2022 said tobacco harm reduction, using less harmful nicotine products, offers new choices to millions of people worldwide who want to switch away from smoking.
They said the full potential of tobacco harm reduction can only be realized if it is integrated into the global public health approach to tobacco, alongside existing tobacco control measures.
