As the WHO FCTC COP11 conference approaches, Joanna Junak speaks with tobacco policy expert Clive Bates on GFN News about the growing divide between science and ideology in global tobacco control. Bates warns that prohibitionist approaches risk fueling black markets and ignoring proven harm reduction strategies. Watch now to hear his call for a new evidence-based direction in nicotine and tobacco regulation.
Transcription:
00:05 - 01:11
[Joanna Junak]
Hello and welcome! I'm Joanna Junak and this is GFN News on GFN.tv. The 11th session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control starts next week. Many experts, consumer advocates and people who use nicotine products are wondering where the debate will go and what impact the meeting will have on nicotine regulation, tobacco harm reduction and the future of global nicotine policy. In today's program, Clive Bates, an international tobacco control policy expert, will tell us about his expectations regarding the upcoming conference. Clive, as COP11 approaches, what should we expect from the Convention?
01:12 - 03:09
[Clive Bates]
Look, I'm very worried about the FCTC. I think it is becoming a stage for extreme ideas. I think it has departed from its original mission, which was to generalise evidence-based tobacco control measures that we all had confidence in, to support... low and middle income countries in implementing the stuff that we know works. Now, it seems to be much more focused on extreme measures, more interested in various forms of prohibition or very, very intrusive measures. that I think in the current context don't really work. The danger is you try and ban things. We've seen this in Australia and other countries. You just get a large black market run by criminal networks with lots of violence. So they're heading in the wrong direction. At the same time, they are rejecting the one big idea that does actually work, which is to make you know, to assume that people are going to use nicotine, whether we like it or not. And therefore, if we can make nicotine use a lot safer, we'll save a lot of lives. And for some reason, they are rejecting that idea and trying to stop that happening, dressing it up as if it's just an industry thing. marketing strategy and dismissing it because of nicotine addiction. But if you go back to the objectives of the convention, which are all about the devastating health, social, environmental and economic consequences, those all flow from smoking. So if we've got a way of reducing smoking and we can do that with the consent of consumers, users at their own expense and on their own initiative, that has to be a good way to make progress. But they're just completely rejecting that.
03:11 - 03:18
[Joanna Junak]
You said that tobacco policy is going in the wrong direction. So what is the current situation then?
03:18 - 05:49
[Clive Bates]
Well, I think, I mean, it's hard to generalise because there is a wide range of opinions. But if I take the mainstream and especially the groups that are represented at the COP meetings, I would say they are becoming... ever more in favor of these sort of draconian policy master strokes or end game measures, which they think will just suddenly solve the problem that everybody's been working on for the last 50 years. And they all amount to various forms of prohibition, like removing the nicotine from cigarettes or banning retail sales or, you know, Those sort of measures I don't think will work. I just think they will either not be agreed by governments when it comes to introducing it, or when they try to do it, they will be overwhelmed by unintended consequences. I think they've become obsessed with the tobacco industry. And I kind of understand that from the past. They were bad actors and they deserve the bad rap that they've got. But we're actually in a situation now where the tobacco companies and, you know, hundreds of nicotine vaping pouch companies can offer nicotine. much safer alternatives for people who want to use nicotine. And for some reason, the tobacco control community is opposing that rather than supporting it. And I would have thought it was good if companies want to get out of the merchant of death business. And they're sort of they've become very McCarthyite and witch finder ish about the tobacco industry. And then again, I think many of them, they've just departed from evidence. It's now quite common to deny that vapes or pouches are any safer than cigarettes. which is a ridiculous thing to get. So they've completely departed from any kind of affinity with science. And that, I think, in the long run will harm them. That's why they will lose out, because people will realise that they can't be trusted with science, with evidence, and that they're just on some sort of weird ideological crusade, like sort of war on drugs activists, you know, from the 1970s. And they'll lose faith and confidence of the public and people will ask, well, how were we ever carried along by this?
05:51 - 05:57
[Joanna Junak]
And what would you, as a tobacco policy expert, like to see coming out of the Convention?
05:57 - 07:28
[Clive Bates]
Look, I mean, I think we need to see a coalition of the willing among parties that say, hang on, some of this stuff that we're getting from WHO and the Secretariat and these public health tobacco control organizations doesn't make sense. They're not saying truthful things scientifically. They're not reflecting the evidence and experience that we have with these products. smoking decline rapidly where there's a rapid uptake in the alternatives. And I think it's quite difficult to do that because there's a lot of groupthink in the conference of the parties. But I think if enough people stand back and say, hang on a minute, this isn't making sense. then I think a trickle will become a flood and many will stand back and say, hold on, we need to rethink what we're doing here. I personally think the FCTC and the Secretariat need a new strategy. based on meeting the objectives of the convention in the most cost-effective way. And doing that would inevitably involve tobacco harm reduction. There's no escape from that. And why anyone would oppose making nicotine use much safer, I really don't know. And that is not a sustainable position for them to hold over the long term. So I think that is bound to change.
07:29 - 07:44
[Joanna Junak]
Thank you, Clive. That's all for today. Tune in next time here on GFN TV or on our podcast. You can also find transcriptions of each episode on the GFN TV website. Thanks for watching or listening. See you next time.