Join Joanna Junak on GFN News as she speaks with Kurt Yeo, co-founder of Vaping Saved My Life, about the key moments and conversations surrounding COP11. Kurt shares his impressions from the unofficial Good COP 2.0 meeting in Geneva and offers insights into the broader discussions on harm reduction and tobacco policy.
Transcription:
00:04 - 00:57
[Joanna Junak]
Hello and welcome. I'm Joanna Junak and this is GFN News on gfn.tv. In today's program, we continue our look at COP11. Alongside the official COP meeting, there was an unofficial Good COP 2.0 meeting in Geneva that week. Joining us today to share impressions and insights from this unique event is Kurt Yeo, co-founder of Vaping Saved My Life. Hello Kurt, it's good to see you again. I want to start with what brought you to Geneva for COP11 and what impressions do you have of the meeting?
00:58 - 04:48
[Kurt Yeo]
Well, I mean, I was part of the original good COP 1.0, which was hosted in Panama and literally a side conference to COP10 at that stage, which was a very interesting event in its own. But I got the call to find out if I would be happy to attend COP2.0 for COP11 in Geneva. And given that our voices are never heard in the official COP meetings, it goes without saying that I had to attend because I think there's a lot of neglect. And as per Professor Tiki Pang, have stated that a lot of the committee, or at least the parties of this conference, as well as the FCTC Secretariat, appear to be evidence blind when it comes to tobacco harm reduction. I can't give you my impressions of COP11 because we are not allowed to attend the meeting, which in itself is a big problem in my eyes because I was always under the impression since I started my work in advocacy is that the whole idea around the Framework Convention of Tobacco Control, the World Health Organization, these meetings was to help prevent or at least reduce the devastation that tobacco smoke has had on the world. And if we go through the preamble, I don't think I want to read all of it now, but if you look at the preamble of that particular international treaty, it overwhelmingly looks at the impact that tobacco smoke has had on society and puts in a number of measures in order to address it. One of the most interesting things that a lot of people won't know and probably has never been communicated is that nicotine has only been mentioned three times in the entire original treaty. So what I saw, what I'm seeing at COP and the general discussion is this mission creep. We're moving away from the damage of tobacco, and we're focusing on how we can literally ban or prohibit these products. And the mission creep is now moving on to nicotine, trying to force all nicotine products under the same umbrella, which is short-sightedness, almost as Clive Bates has indicated, flat earth. Well, no, not Clive Bates. It was Derek Yak that said it's a flat earth look at this particular problem. So naturally, I think advocates like myself, independent researchers, and anybody that's concerned about the unintended consequences of a treaty that is appearing to be more ideologically driven, trying to be prohibitionist, will have some very, very serious unintended consequences. And we saw that in the 1920s with alcohol in the United States and the devastation that that could have. We're now seeing that play out in other parts of the world. Number one out of all of them is Australia, with their prohibition on that, is firebombing of vape stores. The fact that almost all vape products in Australia are bought on the illicit market. We see the impact in India and New Zealand around black markets and how these products are now being controlled by the very individuals that we don't want to have control over. So that's to me, you know, one of the biggest issues why I thought I should be attending COP or Good COP 2.0.
04:50 - 05:00
[Joanna Junak]
And what surprised you the most during COP 11 and the counter-conference Good COP 2.0, the event organized by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance?
05:01 - 09:14
[Kurt Yeo]
Okay, in terms of COP11, again, we don't have everybody around the table. And the people that are most affected by the situation around tobacco are not invited. They're not there. What we are seeing is people that have been cherry-picked. by, you know, busybody NGOs that are all funded by one or two, you know, billionaires from the United States. So it's almost, it is effectively the conference of the parties because you get an invitation to attend that party. It's not about the world. It's not about everybody coming together like we see in the other international treaty, COP30, with regards to climate change. where everybody comes around the table and starts looking at the real problem and addressing it with solutions that are workable. In this particular party, I'm going to have to call it a party, we're having a very few individuals that are all ideologically aligned, that have been cherry picked, including the press that attend there. to make sure that the narrative and they maintain that narrative, that there is strict rules. So effectively what I'm seeing here, and it might sound very harsh, I'm seeing a cult. I'm not seeing experts coming around the table to address the very issue what the World Health Organization's Framework Convention of Tobacco Control has been tasked to do. It was a mission. And it's also quite concerning that they tend to just skip over one of the very, very first articles, Article 1D, which defines tobacco control. And inside that definition is harm reduction, but it gets skipped right over. In terms of Good Cop, It always surprises me that we have people coming from all parts of the world, from different backgrounds, different expertise, different views, all have a similar idea, a similar mission, is that we're looking at individuals, we're looking at the devastation that tobacco has had on the world. And we identify that innovation and consumer-driven innovation has driven the enormous amount of reduction in certain parts of the world. And those are places like New Zealand. Those are places like the UK. We've seen it in Japan. And we've seen these... Record low smoking rates purely because we have an innovation that people want, people drive to. As a former smoker and as a person that's moved over to vaping, I can tell you that I've never met a long-term smoker that's never wanted to quit cigarettes. All of them want to quit cigarettes. But most of them struggle to do so because what we have available, the quit or die approach, or some of the nicotine replacement therapies, and some of the cessation methods, were just wholly unsuccessful. But now we have another product we can add to a toolkit that can increase those quit rates. And the countries like New Zealand, who unfortunately did get a dirty ashtray because they stood up to the machine and said that there are promoting these products, and they've seen the benefits. And for that, they've got a dirty ashtray award. It's rather childish, if you ask me. But the point is that we have in these countries actually sticking to the mission. They follow the evidence. They're providing products that smokers, people that smoke, are wanting because they want to quit. And it's just becoming a win-win situation in those countries. And then we have other countries who get the orchids, the prizes, the accolades. where they're banning things. You know, so in terms of Good Cop, it was just such a great thing to see people coming from all parts of the world, talking about their stories, sharing stories of people that they've met with other individuals, and then just asking the simple question, why can't we be there?
09:16 - 09:30
[Joanna Junak]
Right. As the co-founder of Vaping Saved My Life, a consumer advocacy movement in South Africa, are there any COP11 decisions that you think might affect South Africa and other African countries?
09:33 - 12:44
[Kurt Yeo]
If I look at all the decisions that have been made, and I can only really talk with some level of confidence from a South African perspective, is that even of all the decisions that have been made over the time, South Africa has implemented whatever they can. What I think a lot is forgotten in some of these meetings is that they believe that the entire world operates on the same level. And unfortunately, in countries, in lower middle income countries, we cannot operate on those levels. We have other issues, very pressing issues that will always be pressed forward or pushed forward because of limited resources, a whole host of social economic issues. I think some of the decisions that were made, and I don't believe there was any hard decision whatsoever that was made in this COP11, just more speak, less action, less measuring, is that African countries and lower middle income countries will put things or put measures in place, like we've seen in South Africa. However, there's no way to enforce those. So therefore, there's no real impact. South Africa has a tobacco bill currently that touches many of these check marks. But we've seen an increase in smoking rates. And more importantly, we've seen an increase in the illicit trade around tobacco. So the enforcement becomes an issue. So a lot of these African countries might get to a situation where they'll place these decisions or these guidelines into their legislation. But for many of them, they don't have the ability to, first of all, enforce them. And second of all, even to measure. You know, one of the most startling things that never gets discussed at any of these meetings is that, for example, Africa has 43 members. I think it's 43 members of the FCTC. but we've only done 11 global adult tobacco surveys in the entire continent in the last 20 years. The last one was done in 2021, which was in South Africa. So we don't even have the ability to measure the impact of implementing any of these guidelines. So I would like to see going forward, or if I was in any way, control, the FCT Secretariat, is look at ways of measuring impact, measuring how these guidelines have actually served a purpose. Is there unintended consequences? Do these guidelines actually work in certain environments? And enforce things like measuring and making sure they're measured constantly and continuously. So I don't believe that any of these measures would have any real impact. They might change laws. They might change regulations. But in terms of impact, I don't believe that will happen in any short to medium term period.
12:47 - 12:53
[Joanna Junak]
Okay. And do you feel that the voice of consumers was represented enough during COP11?
12:54 - 14:56
[Kurt Yeo]
At COP11, I don't believe there was any consumer voices whatsoever. None. I didn't hear of any. What we do here is NGOs that are talking on behalf of the children. Whether those children are impacted by smoke, I cannot tell you because some of the children or some of the young people, there weren't even children this year, but some of the young people there, in my view, could be paid actors. and just put in there to talk about the same talking points. But we don't hear about individuals that smoke. We don't hear from farmers, for example. We don't hear any of those things. So we've got a very, very select few individuals that attend these conferences and talk on behalf of 1.4 billion people around the world. So nothing about us without us is absolutely a nothing burger when it comes to the World Health Organization's FCTC. So there's no consumer voices, actual consumer voices. And what I find very strange is that a lot of the things that concern the FCTC and these parties around youth initiation around marketing practices, advertising, of shared by consumer advocates like myself, adult consumer activists that do understand what it means to be a smoker, what it means to be impacted by cigarette smoking, tobacco use. So we do agree that those things have to be applied. So there's a lot more that we have in common than we have against. The only difference that we do have is that how do we approach it? We can't just approach it with coercive measures. We have to start thinking around harm reduction and practical, pragmatic ways of helping people quit smoking whilst at the same time protecting the youth. No one's in disagreement. Unfortunately, they're not hearing that from their side.
14:58 - 15:13
[Joanna Junak]
Thank you, Kurt. That's all for today. Tune in next time here on GFN TV or on our podcast. You can also find the inscriptions of each episode on the GFN TV website. Thanks for watching or listening. See you next time.