Transcription:
Brent: Dr. Wodak, looking ahead to 2023, what do you wish to happen on behalf of THR in Australia?
Alex: Australia has a federal system of government and in our system most reforms happen at the state or equivalent to your provincial level in Canada. So things like decriminalizing homosexuality happen in one state and then spread around the country. Same with voluntary assisted dying, many other reforms like this. And I think this is where tobacco harm reduction is going to move ahead. In Australia, one of the states. And what they will do is they will reduce the scheduling of nicotine for vaping. And we have a system where the states can make their own decisions about the scheduling of medicines. So I think this is going to happen and they're going to allow nicotine for vaping to be sold in certain premises and those will be age restricted vaping shops, tobaccos now then that will spread around the country. And the final stage, and this has to happen at the federal level, is that vaping will be shifted from where it is now as a medicine and it will be shifted to where it is in other advanced democracies that is a consumer product. And so the regulation will be done by the regulator of consumer products. That's where tobacco is, that's where cigarettes are, ironically. So we have an absurd situation in Australia at the moment where nicotine for vaping is included in register of poisons, which tobacco for cigarettes, even though tobacco for cigarettes kills 21,000 people. And there hasn't been a death anywhere around the world from nicotine survival. So this is an unsustainable nonsense and I think that's what's going to happen. Whether it'll happen by 2023 or not, I don't know, but it'll happen sometime. I'm very confident of that.
Brent: Jeffrey, looking ahead to 2023, what do you wish for on behalf of THR?
Jeffrey: I want to see 1000 people in Panama making a rally for the Cup Ten. That's what I want. That's my crazy desire.
Brent: Do you think that will happen?
Jeffrey: I think that we might have a shot if we work together a lot. But I like to shoot big because if we can get 500 people, that's another is still pretty good.
Brent: Now what's the point of that? You think a protest in Panama will actually move the needle?
Jeffrey: It is something we have not happened before. We don't know what could be the repercussions. But I do think that it needs to be visible that there's a huge ton of people that are even willing to travel thousands of thousands of miles just to try to get this harm reduction products available for people who smoke. So if that is not newsworthy, if that is not to bring empathy to the movement and to show visibility of all the things that we are dedicated or that we are willing to do in order to bring opportunities to people, I think it's worth it to give it a shot.
Brent: So what could be the worst case scenario then, if that doesn't happen?
Jeffrey: Cup Ten unfortunately for the good and the bad, it is going to be the most important event for harm reduction products, especially for vaping. We're going to see a lot of push from Bloomberg funded entities trying to ban these products, over regulate them, and even make the advice for countries that have not regulate them to prohibit completely on their countries or even to make pretty much impossible for people to access them. So at this point in time, the worst that could happen is that they succeed whatsoever. We do have some success stories on our back. For example, what happened on Philippines. I do think that what is happening in Mexico that I'm a positive how do you say that? I'm really positive. I'm a positive person and I do think that things are changing. I do think that Mexico, for example, is going to be able to regulate them either now or as soon as the President of Mexico leaves the office. I do think that there's so much people working on this, trying to get this regulate to the moment that they're calling senators and people of the government are calling the Ministry of Health, the subsecretary of health, they're calling it because they don't understand why this product is banned if it is undeconstitutional to ban it. And so they're raising flags, they're raising questions. Every single day that passes is more notorious that there's something wrong about this. You have to be something wrong that you can actually ban a safer alternative that substitutes a really deadly product. So I do think that we do have a chance. I do think that there's a big opportunity and I do think that in the case of the worst case scenario, there's going to be a ton of people that are willing to fight and continue fighting because that's what we have been doing for what, 1020 years, 20 years already.