Join us for the twelfth episode of GFN Voices 2023!
In this episode of GFN Voices, Kgosi Letlape discusses the existential threat felt by industry, government and tobacco control from disruptive safer nicotine products - have tobacco control created the perfect storm?
Transcription:
Joanna Junak:
What's your name and where are you from?
Kgosi Letlape:
My name is Kgosi Letlape and I'm from South Africa.
Joanna Junak:
And what do you do? What is your background?
Kgosi Letlape:
I'm a medical doctor. I'm an ophthalmologist by training and a health activist by choice and a harm reduction advocate.
Joanna Junak:
And what do you think about this year's GFN conference?
Kgosi Letlape:
I think it's a good conference. This is the first time I come to the physical conference post-COVID and I think the time is now for all the components that work around non-combustible nicotine to work together rather than work against each other.
Joanna Junak:
Okay. This year's strapline is tobacco harm reduction the next decade. What do you think needs to change within the next 10 years?
Kgosi Letlape:
What needs to change between the next 10 decades? Actually for me in the next 18 months is that there should be a clear distinction between companies that sell combustibles and structures that sell non-combustibles. There should be a clear distinction. So it's about time that the traditional tobacco industry separates its non-combustible business from its combustible business.
Joanna Junak:
But we see many misinformation around vaping and safety of e-cigarettes. Why?
Kgosi Letlape:
We see a lot of misinformation because traditional combustibles created industries. And there were three main industries that were created by traditional tobacco. The tobacco industry itself, the public health fraternity that is anti-tobacco, and the government. They are taking the taxes from tobacco. And new products that are non-combustible are a threat to the old industrial complex. So the traditional tobacco companies are threatened because the new products might wipe them out. Governments are threatened because they invested in the traditional product. And some governments, I mean the biggest tobacco company in the world is a government owned company in China. And the public health care world, careers have been formed on being anti-combustibles. So when you have alternatives to the combustible products, those careers are threatened.And it is basically from those careers of public health experts that are anti-tobacco and the fact that the WHO has adopted an anti-tobacco stance that that complex is threatened.So what has happened over the last 15-20 years is the anti-tobacco lobby group, public health and WHO, have falsely said the alternatives are coming from the industry. When a lot of them were independent companies, but they've driven it into the hands of the industrial complex. So now we're in a situation where the solution, the alternatives to combustible, are now controlled by the industry. And they need to thank the WHO and public health for that. But that's water under the bridge. And because they are being threatened, they are now resorting to pseudoscience and lies about the alternatives. And that for me is what I find frightening as a medical doctor, when colleagues start now creating bogus science and misinformation about the relative harm of products.
Joanna Junak:
Thank you so much.