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Transcription:

00:00:12 --> 00:03:54


Paddy Costall: I think for me the most interesting and actually the most important aspect of the work that we've been involved in is the increased consumer involvement and also the awareness amongst consumers of the issues that are important to tobacco harm reduction. This was exemplified by the level of interest and the level of activity around what was to be the COP10 meeting in Panama, which was cancelled. But also the level of sophistication in the communications that they were issuing around around issues that were happening within their own regions and their own countries. I think the examples of this were very, very increased levels of activity in South America, with some positive impacts in places like Chile, and also it looks as though there might be some positive impacts in places like Brazil. I think the continued work that's being done by Australian consumers and tobacco harm reduction advocates against an increasingly absurd public health and tobacco control establishment is something that people really do need to get behind and also that we all need to learn from because I do think that there's been progress made despite the situation that they've faced. I think that on the other side of it, just to say, I think that unfortunately the debates continue to be around who's friends with who, who's influencing what, and ignoring quite largely the science and everything else that is what should be the most important drivers of policy in this field. Well, the first thing I'd wish for as a Labour government, get rid of what we've got currently, but I hope that we can actually continue to develop a scientific and sensible dialogue around the whole issue of tobacco harm reduction. I think that we need to take the emotion out of the debate, we need to take the personal attacks and ad hominem attacks on people out of the whole process and we need to get back to what is important, as I said before, the use of the science to drive policy and not the morality or the moral approach taken by some of our opponents and also I hope that we might be able to persuade them to take part in debate rather than we throw hand grenades at each other across barricades because that is not going to achieve anything for anybody and at the end of the day I think that everybody has the same aim and the aim is to reduce levels of smoking and the deadly practices that people employ to consume tobacco. I just think that we need to have an honest discussion about how best to do that and not to become entrenched with morally driven ideas of how that may come about. And I hope that that would be true in a wider sense, not just in the UK.



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Jessica Harding: I think in 2023 we've seen more and more that governments are realising that tobacco harm reduction is here to stay and that they need to deal with it responsibly. And this is in spite of what the WHO is asking them to do, which is to ban or regulate safe nicotine products in the same way as harmful products. So in Indonesia, in August, they passed a law to legalize e-cigarettes. Nearly a quarter of a million people die a year in Indonesia from smoking. So it's really, really good news that people who smoke there will now be able to access properly regulated vaping products. And in Finland, which previously took a very hard line against tobacco harm reduction, they recently proposed to regulate nicotine pouches, and there's been rumblings in Thailand that the government there might be looking to overturn the ban on vaping. So I think we're seeing a trend where governments are realising that whether they are legal or not, consumers will use safe alternatives to smoking and governments need to regulate them and not ban them. Basically, the genie is out of the bottle and it's not going to go back in. So we'll be discussing this and more at the Global Forum on Nicotine in Warsaw in June. Our theme for 2024 is economics, health and tobacco harm reduction. Registration is now open and we'll see you there. So first my hope, I'm from the UK, yes, and in the UK there is a relatively positive stance towards vaping. But the rise in the use of and use of disposable products has created a moral panic here, which we're in the middle of at the moment. And my hope is that our government can keep its nerve and realise that this is what the end game for smoking looks like. It's very messy, but it's working. So I hope they can ride it out without introducing restrictive regulations. And my wish is that we could be the first country in the world to introduce risk-proportionate regulation for all safer nicotine products, including snus. But I think New Zealand might beat us to that.