Join us at the Global Forum on Nicotine 2026 in Warsaw and be part of the only truly open conference on safer nicotine, tobacco harm reduction and the real impacts of prohibition on public health. Hear leading scientists, clinicians, ethicists and advocates discuss social, health and economic consequences of bans, explore strategies to reach marginalized groups, and discover the latest research in our popular Science Lab sessions. Keynotes from pioneers like Dr Alex Wodak and other international experts, plus multilingual streaming and a dedicated Spanish-language session, make GFN 2026 a must-attend event for anyone serious about nicotine policy and harm reduction. Ready to join the discussion? Visit GFN.EVENTS to register!
Transcription:
00:00 - 00:55
[Joanna Junak]
Hello and welcome! I'm Joanna Junak and this is GFN News on GFN.TV. The Global Forum on Nicotine 2026 takes place again in Warsaw. Preparations for the event are currently underway as the team works to bring together another edition of the conference. Paddy Costall, GFN Director, is with us today to share more about what to expect from this year's conference. Hi Paddy, it's good to see you. Let's start with the dates of this year's GFN conference, as they are slightly different, right?
00:55 - 01:42
[Paddy Costall]
Yeah, the dates for GFN 2026 are Wednesday the 3rd of June until Friday the 5th of June in the usual venue, the Presidential Hotel in Warsaw. And this year, the conference will actually end on Friday. And that's largely in response to a number of people who had actually said that eating into their weekend was discouraging them from taking part. So for this year, we've decided to give it a whirl and see whether ending the conference on Friday is successful. So I hope it will be.
01:44 - 01:50
[Joanna Junak]
And what is the main theme of the conference and what will be the key topics on the programme?
01:51 - 04:38
[Paddy Costall]
Well, the theme for the conference is prohibition and public health. And the way that we will actually organise the conference is that over the three days, we'll have three different topics, really. The social impacts, the health and ethical impacts and the economic impacts of prohibition. And the way that we'll structure it is that each day we'll have a keynote which will address either the social theme, the health and ethical theme, or the economic theme. And there will also be a main panel discussion which will go into more detail from different perspectives on those issues. the sessions that we're looking at the other sessions that we're looking at which would be parallel sessions are those that will be how do we reach out to marginalized groups and how do we work with people working in other forms of harm reduction um the impact of supranational bodies on national sovereignty for example the impact that who and others um bloomberg etc can have on policy making and the decisions about regulations in individual countries um to see whether there is a disproportionate impact that they have on the way things develop. We'll look at illicit trade because illicit trade now is not just concerned with tobacco, but is also concerned with new types of products in places where bans have or disproportionate regulation. have meant that it's a profitable market to get into for criminal gangs. The other thing I should say is that there will be a session, a Spanish language session, which will focus on issues that are of major concern in Latin America and also in other Spanish-speaking countries. In addition to that, the large part of the conference that will be streamed will also have simultaneous translation into Spanish and Russian. So we hope that that will encourage people to take part.
04:40 - 04:43
[Joanna Junak]
So prohibition and public health, why this thing?
04:43 - 06:48
[Paddy Costall]
How long have we got? It's a long, long answer, but... In essence, what we want to do is we want to look at the situation that we now face 15 years in from the introduction of safer nicotine and really the first implementation of tobacco harm reduction. We're up against a narrative of misinformation and denial of the increasingly compelling evidence for the efficacy and effectiveness of new products and more generally the efficacy and effectiveness of tobacco harm reduction. to actually contribute to ending the most dangerous and and the most dangerous epidemic that we have in the world where we're talking about 1 billion people who smoke and it is an absolute tragedy that Something which is relatively straightforward, simple to implement and is actually proving to be effective has been denied to a very, very large number of people. And increasingly, if bans are not introduced, we're seeing stricter and not proportionate regulation of products and the ability of people to access them and use them. and we're open to anybody that wants to come and challenge i do i always issue the same plea people can come they can have to have their say they'll be treated with respect and listen to people may not agree with them but they'll be given a hearing so i would encourage the opponents of tobacco harm reduction and the skeptics to come along and debate and discuss And yes, everybody is welcome. We have an open house. That's our most fundamental principle for GFN is it's open to anybody.
06:50 - 06:57
[Joanna Junak]
The GFN program also includes the science lab sessions, which are very popular. What makes them so successful?
06:58 - 10:15
[Paddy Costall]
As I said, I think that the science is moving in a very positive direction and showing the efficiency and the effectiveness of the new and less harmful products. We wanted to highlight science in the programme and we've made it a strand within the programme. I think this year there'll be three sessions, three 90-minute sessions. during which people have an opportunity to make a short up to five minute video about the work that they're undertaking, whether that's lab-based research, epidemiological research, modeling, market research, consumer behavior research, anything that's got a scientific driver behind it. And they make the five minute video and submit it. And those that are selected, there'll be 15 minimum selected to take part in the sessions. So there'll be five in each session. They'll be given 15 minutes to present and do Q&A on their individual research. And there'll also be time within the session for more general discussion about the presentations people have seen. It's a curated process so that we try to put like content together and the sessions will be recorded and they'll be posted as part of the conference archive. So they're there forever. If you like, it's our enhanced form of posters. Instead of people standing in a corridor and talking about their poster during a lunch break, we're actually building it in to the fabric of the event, into the program itself. Now, the reason there's only three sessions is because there's a lot of other competition. The Global Forum is the only conference that tackles science, policy, everything all in one go and that is a very complex picture to put together in a very short period of time. So we hope the science lab is going to be a permanent feature and we may actually enhance it and extend it in time. But that requires people to submit. It requires people who are researchers, academics, scientists to engage with us to make this thing a reality so i'd encourage people to submit even if you can't come to the conference and your your submission is of high quality it will be included in the conference archive and referenced and it's searchable on the archive and people can find it so if you want to do that and then you wish to promote what you've done you can do that via social media with links to our I don't know how that works because I am not literate with social media, but I believe it's a possibility. So I'd encourage people to submit.
10:17 - 10:30
[Joanna Junak]
Great. Just to add, the deadline for submissions is the 17th of April. And the last question to you, Paddy, are you able to confirm any of the speakers' names?
10:30 - 14:34
[Paddy Costall]
Yeah, a couple of today. As I say, we're still working on a number of the sessions and we're working on a couple of the keynotes. But we're delighted that the Michael Russell oration, which will be the first keynote on Wednesday, the 3rd of June, will be delivered by Dr. Alex Wodak, who a lot of people will be familiar with, who is one of the. pioneers of harm reduction and is certainly an avid supporter of tobacco harm reduction and is still active in Australia despite attempts by others to end the whole notion of tobacco harm reduction there. So I think what he has to say in the oration will be quite interesting. The oration will be hosted by Fiona Patton who's a former Michael Russell Award winner. And the response to the oration will be given by Ethan Nadelman, who again is one of the pioneers of harm reduction and somebody who has been a very, very significant supporter of tobacco harm reduction for many years. during that session there will also be the presentation of this year's Michael Russell award and we're in the process of confirming who that will be given to at the present moment in terms of other speakers well I'll start first off with the the hosts that we've got for some of the panels we've got Clive Bates who will host the panel on the economic costs of prohibition we've got garrett mcgovern dr garrett mcgovern who is another fervent supporter of harm reduction and tobacco harm reduction in ireland and he'll host the panel on the science the health and ethical impacts of prohibition And in terms of the social impacts of prohibition, we'll have Reem Ibrahim, who has recently left the UK and joined the Reason Foundation in the United States. Now the panels that they will lead are still in construction because what we want to ensure is that we've got people from different parts of the world, that we have people with different perspectives coming from different disciplines. Etc. So that's it. That's a work in progress. I mean, in terms of some of the people we have already got lined up, we're delighted that Professor Jean-Francois Etta, one of the world's leading ethicists, has actually agreed to take part in one of the keynote sessions, along with another of our former Michael Russell Award winners, Ariel Saylor. And I think that's... That's going to be a very significant session, and it's a massive issue, is the whole thing about the health impacts and the ethical consequences of prohibition. Again, a former Michael Russell orator said, Joe Kosterich Dr Joe Kosterich from Australia will be taking part as will another I hate to say another Australian having just spent six weeks there I came back with a collection of Australians Rohan Pike who's a former Police officer who worked in customs enforcement, et cetera, and is now a consultant on tobacco vapes and other types of harm reduction globally. We have Lynn Dawkins who works for Penny Associates and we have somebody from Mexico, Sarah Snapp, who will also take part. As I say, we're working on the list as we speak.
14:35 - 14:54
[Joanna Junak]
Thank you Paddy. That's all for today. Tune in next time here on GFN TV or on our podcast. And make sure to check out our social media pages for the latest updates on this year's Global Forum on Nicotine conference. Thanks for watching or listening. See you next time.