The battle over safer nicotine products is certainly about health, but it’s also about something more important: autonomy. As governments embrace nicotine restrictions driven by moral panic and public health paternalism, adult choice is increasingly treated as a threat instead of a right to be respected.
In this episode of GFN Interviews, Reem Ibrahim of Reason examines the growing conflict between individual freedom and population-level control. From disposable vape bans and black markets to anti-capitalist hostility toward tobacco harm reduction, Ibrahim argues public health is drifting toward prohibition and away from the people it claims to protect.
Featuring:
REEM IBRAHIM
Research Fellow, Policy & Media, Reason Magazine
@reemamiribrahim
reemabrahim.com
Transcription:
00:02 - 01:06
[Brent Stafford]
Hi, I'm Brent Stafford and welcome to another edition of RegWatch on GFN.TV. The battle over safer nicotine products is certainly about health, but it's also about something more important, autonomy. The right of individuals to decide for themselves how to manage their own health, free from government control and public health paternalism. Sadly, as governments across the West crack down on safer nicotine products in the name of protecting youth, adult autonomy is increasingly treated as a threat instead of a right to be respected. Joining us today to talk through these heady issues is Reem Ibrahim. Reem is a research fellow in policy and media at Reason and previously worked at the Institute of Economic Affairs in London. She is also hosting the opening panel at this year's Global Forum on Nicotine in Warsaw. Reem, welcome to RegWatch.
01:07 - 01:08
[Reem Ibrahim]
Thank you so much for having me.
01:09 - 01:17
[Brent Stafford]
Reem, would you agree that modern tobacco control refuses to see people as individuals capable of self-governance?
01:19 - 02:14
[Reem Ibrahim]
Yes, I absolutely do think so, Brent. I think what's really interesting is that when we're talking about public health policy, there tends to be an understanding that the individual in this particular instance is disregarded. So their own choices, their own freedoms, their own moral dignity, if you will, is disregarded. And the idea that public health as a priority has to be holistic and has to include the entirety of society is taken as a complete given. And so even when it comes to the evidence that we see, even when we look at the consequences of tobacco control and the consequences of government interventions in public health, Even if we just cast that aside for a moment, the principles and the morality of individual freedoms and the idea that an adult is an adult and adult or not to be infantilized is disregarded when it comes to public health policymaking.
02:14 - 02:19
[Brent Stafford]
Do you think they prefer population level interventions over people?
02:20 - 02:54
[Reem Ibrahim]
Yes, absolutely. And I think that public health policymaking sort of as a institution is always looking at things from a population level basis. And even if there is one particular individual that is harmed by a policy, if it promotes the good for the greatest good for the greatest amount of people, sort of this utilitarian perspective, at least that's what they believe it to be the case, then of course they end up seeing it as a population level intervention and they disregard the dignity, the respect, but also the human freedom of the individual.
02:54 - 03:07
[Brent Stafford]
You have considerable experience talking about autonomy and freedom. Tell us about your time at the Institute of Economic Affairs in London and what you're doing now at Reason in Washington, D.C.
03:08 - 05:57
[Reem Ibrahim]
Yes, thank you. So I absolutely love my time in London. I was at the Institute of Economic Affairs. I started there actually as an intern in 2022. And I began to become particularly interested in tobacco harm reduction. Personally, because I was a smoker. I started smoking when I was about 15 years old. And I, at the IEA, learned a lot about the way in which public health policy has made it far more difficult for young people, especially, to quit smoking. Because there was so much demonization of products like vapes. Even though I was, at the time, 19 years old, I was legally able to purchase those products. the demonization of those products and the idea, the sort of moral panic around them really turned me off them. And it really meant that I wasn't interested in trying those products and I continued to smoke. And when I was at the IEA, I was a libertarian. I was so excited to be at the oldest free market think tank in the United Kingdom. I spent three years as an employee at the IEA and I had the most amazing time promoting free markets, but also I was such a nerd for free market ideas. I was such a nerd for liberty. I would talk endlessly about human dignity and respect and individual liberty, but also from a property rights perspective, the idea that you as an individual person own your property, that's your body, you own that property and no government can take that away from you. No government, no no institution, no university, no mask mandate can ever tell you what you can do with your own body and what you can put in it and how you manage your own health. And I became so fascinated by these ideas. I think that when it came to tobacco harm reduction, the reason why I thought this was so fascinating is because I can talk about the population level ideas you know the idea that millions of people in the united kingdom had quit smoking and saved their lives potentially by vaping by switching to safer and healthier products millions of people literally millions of people but policy makers don't even bat an eyelid but if you start saying here is my great uncle who was a smoker for 50 years who couldn't play with his grandchildren who had such difficulty with his everyday life. And then he discovered e-cigarettes. He discovered vaping and he was able to quit smoking. His health dramatically improved immediately. And all of a sudden he was able to commit to making a choice that was healthier for him, his family, his community, and even, of course, the institutions that pay for those health care systems, the NHS. And so that human story became such a significant part of what I sort of promoted in terms of our communications.
05:59 - 06:05
[Brent Stafford]
Reem, tell me, why does tobacco harm reduction provoke such hostility inside public health?
06:06 - 09:14
[Reem Ibrahim]
I definitely think that there is an enormous anti-capitalist and, by extension, anti-industry perspective when it comes to these ideas. So I've discussed that I believe in free markets and I believe that individual people ought to be able to exchange freely with one another. And when you point out the positive health benefits to that, not only just millions of people being lifted out of poverty and the idea that people are able to make those choices for themselves but also specifically when it comes to tobacco harm reduction the idea that Smoking is bad for you. And the tobacco companies created these products. Well, they didn't. They manufactured those products, but these products have existed for literally centuries. And they made these products. They manufactured them. They sold them. They marketed them. The majority of adults smoked in the 70s. And then that very industry, those very same companies created products that would stop people smoking. So here you have this really bad product, the cigarettes, and here you have vaping, nicotine pouches, snows, and these products are being created by the same companies. So here you have the problem, here you have the solution. The solution has been created by the very same people, the very same companies that created the problem. And so immediately, that solution is invalidated because it came from the very same people. And I think that fundamentally it becomes, you know, it doesn't matter what the evidence suggests. It doesn't matter what the scientists or academics or experts say. It doesn't matter what human beings say. It doesn't matter about these human stories. What matters is that it came from the bad guys and those are the bad guys. And by the way, I think that this mindset, I call it the not invented here syndrome, the idea that my colleague, former colleague at the IEA, Dr. Christopher Snowden, we wrote a paper about this, where he said, not invented here syndrome is seen across so many different areas of policymaking. Let's take housing. housing is expensive the solution to expensive housing is building more housing by deregulating the planning system and making it easier for developers to build housing but no no no those are evil big developers and the evil landlords and these people are terrible and actually what we want is more government intervention we want rent controls we want regulations we want more social housing but here's the solution no no we don't want the solution obesity Obesity is one of the biggest killers. And here we have a solution with semaglutide, GLP-1s, these injections that literally have stopped so many people from overeating and enormously reduce their risks of cardiovascular disease and heart failure and so many other illnesses. But no, no, no, the anti-obesity campaigners don't want GLP-1s. They want junk food advertisement bans. They want regulations, sugar taxes. They want restrictions. They don't want to end obesity crises. They want more government. And I think that this is applicable to so many other industries.
09:14 - 09:24
[Brent Stafford]
So are you saying that public health has a penchant for anti-capitalist kind of positions or say they're not really interested in solving the problems?
09:26 - 10:28
[Reem Ibrahim]
No, they're not interested in solving the problems when it comes to the outcomes. I mean, I think that a lot of these people are probably, well, most definitely well-intentioned. You know, they want... I genuinely do think that the public health activists say they want people to stop overeating and they want obesity to come down. They want people's lives to be saved. They genuinely are... um intentional in that desire they want that for the public and they want public health to improve the people that say they want smoking bans and restrictions probably do really care about the kids and really care about the way in which people live their lives and they care about health but they are predisposed to wanting intervention as a solution even if there are other solutions they refuse to even acknowledge the evidence around those various solutions. They don't care about those other solutions because they already know what they want. They go into government, they go into policymaking positions, they go into advisory positions, with the only objective to intervene in people's lives. That's it.
10:29 - 10:40
[Brent Stafford]
You wrote extensively about the UK's disposable ban. How did that happen in the UK, considering its reputation of being open to nicotine vapes and tobacco harm reduction?
10:40 - 11:40
[Reem Ibrahim]
It's one of the biggest tragedies, I think, when it comes to the United Kingdom. There are so many aspects of the UK that I love very, very much. And I think that one of them is when I first started getting involved in the tobacco harm reduction space and started getting interested in these new products, we were talking about the Swedish model. You know, one of the only countries in the world to achieve what, almost achieve what the World Health Organization calls smoke-free. They've got an adult smoking population of just above 5%. And it's a miracle. But is it a miracle or is it just a consequence of adults being able to choose safer and healthier products? It's not a coincidence. It is a direct and intentional policy outcome based on people making free choices. And in the same breath, when we spoke about Sweden, we would speak about the UK. Millions, literally millions of adults have quit smoking through vaping in the United Kingdom. And generally speaking, policymakers celebrated that success. Until very recently.
11:40 - 11:46
[Brent Stafford]
Is it a moral panic that caused this reaction in the UK?
11:47 - 14:39
[Reem Ibrahim]
In part, so the actual disposable vapes ban came from DEFRA. So it came from the Environmental Department of the United Kingdom. And it was coupled with the health benefits or supposed health benefits of banning disposable vapes. But what I find fascinating about the sort of logic behind this particular policy proposal is it was, OK, lots and lots of people are using disposable vapes and are discarding them on the streets. They are not recycling them. So the solution must be banning it, right? Or is the solution potentially a deposit return scheme? No, no, no, we don't want to hear about that. We don't want to ban it. OK. Then the health aspect of this, it was, well, you know, the, sorry, and also on the environment aspect, sorry, the lithium batteries. They were saying, well, it uses so much lithium, we cannot, it's really environmentally unfriendly. But there are, you know, electric vehicles, the manufacturing of electric battery, car batteries, takes an enormous amount of lithium. Nobody's saying we should ban electric vehicles for environmental reasons. You know, this is completely preposterous. And the amount of lithium used in all those disposable vapes, I think we came to the conclusion it was about 16 million. And the amount of people that are using electric cars is so much more than that. So the logic doesn't sort of align with one another. And then there is the health aspect of this. So there was this massive moral panic. I call it the politics of mum's net. So Mumsnet is a British... I believe it is, or at least it originated in the UK, a mother blogging site where mums go on and they talk all about, you know, the trials and tribulations that come with becoming a mother. And on there, there was lots and lots of talk about their children using disposable vapes. And... We know this is a problem that has happened across the entire world in the US and Canada and in lots of other places where the moral panic around disposable vapes, these candy floss flavored, supposedly marketed to children vaping products that are so easy to use, you can throw them away. And the moral panic around their use amongst children skyrocketed. But when you actually looked at the numbers, Youth vaping was wildly overstated. So double the number of 11 to 17 year olds drank alcohol regularly compared to them vaping regularly. Double, double the amount drank alcohol regularly than vaped regularly. But no one seriously considered banning alcohol for everyone because some people that are already banned from purchasing the product managed to get their hands on it. Are we going to ban alcohol for all adults because some teenagers managed to sneak a bottle of whiskey or a bottle of vodka behind their parents' back? So why are we doing this with disposable vapes?
14:40 - 14:45
[Brent Stafford]
It's incredible, actually. Well, you know, don't say that too loudly because alcohol might be next.
14:47 - 16:05
[Reem Ibrahim]
I think that alcohol might be next. Junk food is also being restricted severely. The idea that adults cannot make their own choices is an aspect of policymaking that I think has completely become the dominant consensus. The idea that politicians and bureaucrats have the right to tell adults what they can and cannot do. And this is why, by the way, I... I really am passionate about the consequences of tobacco harm reduction and the idea that adults are able to improve their lives significantly. But I think that talking about the consequences, the positive benefits of adults having freedom is not enough. We have to talk about the principles. We have to talk about the idea that an adult is fundamentally free. A human being has rights that come from nature, that government cannot morally intervene in. We have to talk about the moral aspects of this, the morality of government interventions of the nanny state. Otherwise, The consequences of all of these other aspects of our lives can continue to be intervened in. You know, the idea that the government can literally control everything that you do is completely on the table unless we take away the idea that morally governments, politicians cannot intervene in your lives.
16:06 - 16:16
[Brent Stafford]
The World Health Organization wants all of government and society to move together as one in order to, you know, get rid of nicotine.
16:16 - 18:28
[Reem Ibrahim]
I used to have a relatively positive view of the WHO until I started thinking about the messaging that they are currently coming out with. And this has only really been a phenomenon over the last decade or so, where they are literally coming out with policy proposals that would... people like the world health organization encourages policy outcomes that will kill people because if you are making it more difficult for an adult smoker to quit smoking which is exactly what control over safer nicotine products does you are going to kill people and we shouldn't be afraid to point that out so The idea that we have to have a whole of society approach against nicotine completely disregards the way in which human beings consume these products. And this is, again, why I think that the human freedom aspect of this is really important. Why do adults smoke? Is it they are poor? Is it they are bored? Is it they are depressed? No, it's because adults enjoy cigarettes. Adults like smoking. Smokers like smoking. Shock. Smokers like smoking. Give them a product that they like smoking even more. They like using even more, sorry. So vaping products, nicotine pouches, if the flavors are attractive, if the product is easy to use with disposable vapes, you know, there is no need to buy liquids, recharge it, none of that. It's draw activated. It is so easy to use. When you make it easy for smokers to quit, you are saving their lives. And the World Health Organization wants to do the exact opposite. On this exact same sort of train of thought, there is also a complete refusal to acknowledge the black market. The idea that when you ban something, it disappears. is also seemed to be received wisdom in these policymaking spaces. The idea that the black market is minuscule, that it doesn't exist, that when the government makes something illegal, it means it disappears is completely accepted. And there is a refusal to acknowledge that the war on drugs is being extended to tobacco products.
18:29 - 18:56
[Brent Stafford]
Does making something illegal or, say, hiking the tobacco taxes to the point where it's insane to buy legal cigarettes, look at Australia, for instance, because like around 80 to 90 percent of the legal market is now transitioned over to purchasing from the black market. What does it do when you take a regular human being and you put them in contact to the illegal black market like that?
18:56 - 21:23
[Reem Ibrahim]
That's an excellent question. I think that it really gets to the crux of the problem here. When you are making adults that want to access a product that is currently legal and you're making it so extraordinarily expensive or in some cases banning it, forcing them into the black market, psychologically they've already broken the law and they are okay with breaking the law. So they will have access to everything. You know, instead of it just being tobacco, they have access to the same guy that sells them tobacco and will sell them their cocaine, will sell them their heroin, will sell them their fentanyl and whatever it is. And so you end up creating a system in which people are forced into the black market. They are forced to commit a crime, something that is illegal. And they now have already broken that law. They've already gotten past that psychological barrier. And so they are willing to then intervene in that way. And they are willing to access these products. They have an entire black market available to them. And I think it's crazy we've gotten to this point. In the United Kingdom, the black market is astronomically large. And we know this. We can't track the black market, but we know this based on legal practices. The amount of tobacco that is currently being sold legally in the United Kingdom has dramatically plummeted at the same time as smoking rates not really changing very much. So between 2022 and 2024, the amount of money that the Treasury raised from legal tobacco sales plummeted by 40%. 4-0, 40%. Smoking rates in that time barely changed. So what we can reasonably and logically deduce from those numbers is that after the pandemic, people started buying their products illegally again. And adult smokers realized that the tobacco duty was so expensive. And on the black market, you could buy these products for significantly cheaper. And so what happens? They simply go to the black market. And I can, you know, it's not just going to criminals. Going to duty free and people travel so much more now than they did 30 years ago. It's so easy to ask a friend to buy your product when they pop into Heathrow Airport. You know, it's not very difficult. And I personally, anecdotally, don't know a single smoker in the UK that does buy their products legally.
21:25 - 21:35
[Brent Stafford]
So in a way, whether it's a ban or whether it's just making something enormously expensive, it is really, truly a prohibition, is it not?
21:35 - 22:46
[Reem Ibrahim]
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that from my perspective, and there are other people that may disagree with me in the tobacco harm reduction space, but I think that adults ought to smoke if they wish to. If you want to smoke cigarettes and you are aware of the harms that come along with it and you are aware of the other products that are available to you and you say, hey, I still want to smoke. That's your right. My grandmother still smokes. I'm actually at my grandmother's today in London. And I remember when I was younger, I really, really hated the fact that she smoked and I really wanted her to quit. But now, you know, when you when you're in your 80s and I'm thinking about my grandmother in her 80s, who, you know, perhaps unfortunately will not have so many more years on this earth. Why wouldn't she smoke? Why would she quit now? Shouldn't she be allowed to enjoy her life and smoke cigarettes if she wishes to? And I do think that that extends to the idea that human beings ought to be allowed to make choices for themselves. So yes, prohibitionism is bad because it causes bad outcomes, but also it's immoral. Adults should be allowed to make those choices for themselves.
22:47 - 23:09
[Brent Stafford]
So let's bring in a contentious issue, at least for some, and that's kind of the contradiction public health has when it comes to, say, opioid addiction. In Canada, the government gives out opioid supplements or alternatives free, but yet has a real problem with nicotine. How do you score the two?
23:11 - 25:28
[Reem Ibrahim]
I do think that this is fundamentally a problem with the demonization of the tobacco industry. And I mean, look, the tobacco industry is one of many industries where there are companies that have behaved poorly in the past. But if you begin to demonize entire industries based on the behavior of certain companies more than 50 years ago, then you wouldn't get very far when it comes to policymaking. So I think it really is that. It's the tobacco industry are the bad guys, and therefore we cannot possibly listen to any solution they might propose, even if that solution is correct and will probably save lives. They don't care. It's also just the politics of it. It's political economy. The idea that a politician looks good by banning stuff. You know, for a politician to go in and say, I am ending the disposable vapes epidemic and I am going to ban all candy floss vapes. And you've got all these mothers cheering with their 15 year old kids that already have a vape in their backpack because they bought it from their mate. This is politics. It's visuals. It looks great. It sounds great. These bans and restrictions and regulations sound lovely. And the reality does not matter. They completely ignore the reality. And it's interesting from a harm reduction perspective. So you're right, in a lot of countries, in Canada, in some areas of the US, there is an acceptance that If you are an addict, so if you are a drug addict and you have access to those products in a safe and clean environment where your needles are being changed, where you are next to a health care professional. So these are really kind of life and death situations. You are less likely to overdose and that these people not dying is a net positive. rather than them taking these products illegally on the streets where they are infested with diseases. There is an acceptance that these people living human life is good and therefore keeping these people alive is good. And so that's a positive policy outcome. That logic does not apply to tobacco harms. And I think that it is about the politics of this.
25:28 - 26:01
[Brent Stafford]
when it comes to, you know, a hard drug user like that, as you just described, you know, the position is that they respect that person's autonomy to make the choice to use those drugs in the first place. That's a part of it, right? They respect the autonomy of that person. They want to preserve that person's dignity. That's before saving their life. Preserve their dignity, respect their autonomy. So how can they have that in that case, but refuse to do it for a smoker?
26:03 - 28:11
[Reem Ibrahim]
Yeah, that's a really good question. I think that it's basically to do with the politics of the tobacco industry and the demonization of them. There's also the other aspect of this, which is that smoking has been socially demonized so significantly to the point that A drug addict is, it's not their fault. They fell on hard times. They fell into the wrong crowd. They met the wrong people. They had difficult issues. They became homeless. They found those products and they became addicted and it's not their fault. With smokers, it's almost as though the people themselves are being demonized, that the fact that you still smoke in 2026 is seen as dirty and bad and wrong. And it's almost as though, you know, we went from glorifying smoking to completely demonizing the smokers. And I think a lot of people probably also feel ashamed that they still smoke and they do not... you know, to even consider the idea that tobacco harm reduction might save their lives is something that they are potentially also not willing to accept. I mean, this is definitely true of the older generation. I was very grateful to the fact that I was born in the 21st century where I could access these products. And yes, I did start smoking at 15, but I was able to, at the age of 19, find other products I liked. that meant that I could consume nicotine in a much safer way than if I was born 100 years ago. And I think that from my perspective, it's the acceptance that these other products are healthier for you and therefore you are taking control of your life. But when it comes to hard drugs, the person's autonomy is almost, they're almost seen as children. They're almost seen as people that aren't capable of making decisions for themselves and therefore the harms being reduced and their lives being saved is almost a progressive position. But when it comes to smokers, that progressivism completely disappears.
28:13 - 28:40
[Brent Stafford]
Reem, as you know, the 13th edition of the Global Forum on Nicotine, the annual conference on safer nicotine products and tobacco harm reduction, takes place again this year in Warsaw, Poland, from June 3 to 5, 2026, just coming up around the corner. The conference theme is prohibition and public health. In your mind, what are some solutions to address how prohibitionist thinking has come to dominate public health policy around nicotine?
28:41 - 30:44
[Reem Ibrahim]
Firstly, I just want to say I'm so excited, so excited for GFN, partly because there are so many people attending and speaking that I respect so greatly and that have knowledge that I can't possibly fully appreciate or understand. And I do think that the benefit of these conferences specifically is that they bring people together that have a shared goal and a shared mission and a shared vision together. And that's that we want the world to be a better place. And we have similar views and similar understandings of how that can come about and how we can improve people's lives and how we can make people healthier and how we can improve public health. I fundamentally think that coming together and pointing out the hypocrisy that prohibitionists currently are reliant on to include in their logic, the idea that, you know, at COP 11 last year, seeing so many countries be bullied into prohibitionism, be bullied by these institutions, by these other countries into restricting and restricting products, but also abandoning their tobacco harm reduction I mean, just thinking about St Kitts and Nevis, how they are so constantly demonized and bullied into abandoning tobacco harm reduction, but they refuse and they are strong and they are bold. And I think that we ought to be inspired by those very people that ensure that The freedom is fundamentally a part of how they approach public health, but also the evidence is on our side. The evidence is overwhelming. The only country in the world that has actually achieved what the WHA wants is Sweden, and they have not banned tobacco, they have not banned safe and nicotine products, they have allowed adults to make choices for themselves and for their own lives and for their own bodies and for their own communities and families. And they have done it in a way that means that those people can succeed and flourish in their lives and improve their health.