Bangladesh has introduced sweeping new restrictions on nicotine products, including vapes and pouches - extending penalties even to personal use. In this interview, Will Godfrey of Filter breaks down what the law means, its public health implications, and why critics warn it could fuel illicit markets and harsher enforcement.
Transcription:
00:00 - 00:32
[Joanna Junak]
Hello and welcome. I'm Joanna Junak and this is GFN News on GFN.tv. Today we will be speaking with Will Godfrey of Filter about policy developments in Bangladesh. Hi, well, what's been happening?
00:34 - 01:36
[Will Godfrey]
Hi, Joanna. At the end of 2025, the interim government of Bangladesh imposed an ordinance clarifying the total prohibition of nicotine vapes, pouches and heated tobacco products, as Kiran Sidhu reported for Filter. The country already banned sales and import of many safer nicotine products, but this move seems intended to close remaining legal and regulatory ambiguities, a tobacco control advocate in Bangladesh speaking anonymously told Kiran. The ordinance defines safer nicotine alternatives as tobacco products, bans advertising and promotion, and disturbingly introduces new punishments. A penalty of up to six months in jail plus a fine now applies not only to sales, production or import of safer nicotine products, but also to personal possession and use. This, wrote Kiran, removes any doubt that the prohibition has escalated to drug war levels.
01:39 - 01:42
[Joanna Junak]
And what are some of the implications?
01:43 - 02:59
[Will Godfrey]
Firstly, it criminalizes access to harm reduction in a country estimated to have the world's fifth highest total of tobacco users. Bangladesh suffers over 130,000 annual smoking related deaths, plus more harms from widespread use of risky traditional forms of oral tobacco. Further, if the law is enforced, enforcement itself will entail further harms. I remember being at a conference in 2019 when Ethan Nadelman, the founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, who has devoted his career to opposing the so-called war on drugs, expressed fear that with nicotine, quote, we may be at the beginnings of the great new drug war of the 21st century, with all that implies in terms of arrests, incarceration and targeting of the most vulnerable. Bangladesh's move is liable, Ethan told Kiran, to lead to a dynamic illicit market as well as other harmful consequences of prohibitionist policies, including corruption and unjust incarcerations. It's part of a pattern seen in many parts of the world, including other Asian countries such as Vietnam, India, Thailand and Singapore.
03:00 - 03:02
[Joanna Junak]
So why did Bangladesh do this?
03:04 - 04:09
[Will Godfrey]
Making sure that people can only legally access the most dangerous nicotine products is the opposite of public health. But again, it's part of that international pattern. Locking up people for trying to quit smoking and for consuming products that present relatively modest harm at most seems crazy, as Ethan put it. But that seems to be the dominant state of mind, he continued, not just in Bangladesh, but also at the World Health Organization and the Bloomberg Foundation, which I suspect played a role in encouraging this new prohibition. Shame on them. Among Bloomberg-funded organizations, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids put out a statement praising Bangladesh for, quote, a move that will save lives and protect millions of young people from lifelong addiction. and vital strategies is on record as having advocated to ban vapes in Bangladesh, including through, quote, multiple one-to-one meetings with Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Health officials to provide evidence on the harms of electronic nicotine delivery systems.
04:11 - 04:25
[Joanna Junak]
Thank you, Will. 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.