Explore tobacco harm reduction at GFN through a candid interview with Brazilian consumer advocate Alexandro Lucian, who shares why this global event matters, the misinformation challenges in Brazil, and why education and accurate science are essential for safer nicotine choices. Learn how language barriers, anti‑vaping narratives, and limited local research shape public opinion—and how translating complex evidence into Portuguese helps counter myths.
Transcription:
00:10 - 00:15
[Joanna Junak]
GFN this year, what made you decide to come?
00:15 - 01:04
[Alexandro Lucian]
Well, I already attended GFN on other years, so I think this event is the biggest event about tobacco harm reduction in the world. As a Brazilian consumer and activist, I had to be here because you find every specialist and expert on the field, you have access to the updated science, You have a lot of connections made with other activists of Latin America, especially. So it's a place where we can renew our strength and our energies for the rest of the year to try to fight for tobacco harm reduction. It's a place where you can find the most advanced and updated information about nicotine and tobacco harm reduction and everything. So I couldn't miss it by the world.
01:04 - 01:09
[Joanna Junak]
What are the biggest barriers to communicating about tobacco harm reduction in Brazil?
01:11 - 02:47
[Alexandro Lucian]
The language, especially because Brazil, since the e-cigarettes are banned since 2009, there is a lot of misinformation and disinformation. And there is not a lot of studies. We have a lot of anti-vaping propaganda. So when you talk to a Brazilian, and it's not a surprise that most Brazilians think that vaping are even more harmful than smoking, you have to send them to read something in English, you have to make them to understand scientific research, which is not easy. It's a lot of times complex, have a lot of numbers, a lot of difficult phrases. So one of the biggest pillars of my work is try to translate that to the general public. So THR in Brazil, I think the main aspect and the main difficulty is translating this complex topic in a more easy way to understand that vaping is not 100% secure. It's harmful but it's much less harmful than smoking and there is so much complexity on the theme that is this is the I think the biggest barrier that the scientific information is in English and we try to translate. One of my jobs is translating scientific papers to Portuguese. I try my best, but I am an independent consumer and activist, so unfortunately we have so few people in Brazil interested in THR, very few organizations, and I hope that this changes in the future.
02:47 - 02:51
[Joanna Junak]
Why is education so important in tobacco harm reduction?
02:52 - 04:22
[Alexandro Lucian]
Well, education is important in everything, so we have to be educated if we want to understand the world. So, tobacco harm reduction, since it's a topic that mainly is discussed in English-speaking countries, Brazil is, and of course, together with all this propaganda, anti-vaping propaganda, people are difficult to have access to a good education about this topic. Because when you think about it, there is some very hard truth behind it. Like, I don't know, let's see, nicotine. Nicotine doesn't cause cancer. but it's not innocuous, it's not 100% safe. So when you talk about nicotine in a way that, wait, it's not the worst thing possible, people often confuse nicotine with smoking. But you don't want to encourage people to use nicotine, despite having benefits to use nicotine, but also there are harms. So you have to search for an equilibrium about the truth behind it, no matter what, but also doesn't encourage people to misunderstand the tobacco harm reduction in a way that, oh, so it's safer, it's safe, it's 100%, no problem using, so I'll start to vaping despite not smoking. That is the challenge, I think, and education is the main part of it.
04:23 - 04:29
[Joanna Junak]
The sessions you have participated in, what have you found interesting?
04:30 - 05:26
[Alexandro Lucian]
I loved the presentation of Dr. Ariely because I am not a part of the academia. So it was a bit grim to know that the academia have so much challenges about funding. And the system by itself has a lot of flaws because we try to use science to prove our point, to be secure about what we are saying and doing. And when we discover that science has a lot of flaws, a lot of scientific papers are not trustful and not reliable, it's something that scared me. But also Dr. Ariely told us that this is changing slowly, but it is. So it's hopeful to see that in the future we'll have better science, better information, so I can get this information and translate and show to my public audience.