Chapters:
0:00 - Intro 0:10 - Clive Bates & David Sweanor 2:00 - Natalia Khodakevich 3:17 - Spanish point of view to "THR is here for good" strapline 4:56 - John Oyston 6:20 - Judy Gibson 7:39 - OutroTranscription:
00:09
So with you, clyde, what do you think of the conference so far? This year?
00:13
Conference is great. We're getting the usual update science, policy, politics. It restores your faith that something can be done that possibly even the world will ultimately do the right thing and wipe out the smoking related disease epidemic. But it's going to be still a longer pill struggle, and nothing's changed in that respect.
00:33
Now, David, do you share that optimism?
00:35
Yeah, as we discussed before, Brent, I think the facts come out good. Policy is contagious. We're seeing very effective things happen around the world. We're seeing tremendous opposition to that. But eventually I think that opposition has to crumble. As more of the science comes out, we see more of the results and how many people are moving to alternatives. We see what that means in terms of disease rates. It's a matter of, can we speed this up? And the irony of seeing groups like the world health organization trying to prevent it and trying to slow it down.
01:06
What's going to happen to the 8 million vapors in the US. Come shortly when the devices are pulled?
01:17
Most of the existing 8 million vapors will find some kind of workaround. They'll mix their own liquids. They'll buy devices on the black market. They'll use what they've already got. They will be kind of the people we should be worried about are the remaining 30 million smokers for whom vaping will become much more difficult thing to switch to. So it's not just the existing stock of vapors. It's the potential vapors in the future that the FDA is going to be blocking from switching from high risk to low risk. The way they're carrying on in the states now, essentially millions more will get sick and die as a result of basically completely incompetent regulation by the food.
01:58
And drug administration in many places all around the world. Canada, the US. Especially Canada, because that's where I'm from. I mean, there's a lot of people who accept harm reduction when it comes to drugs, right? Whether they're in health Canada or in their local public health units or whatever. But then when it comes to tobacco harm reduction, they're adamantly opposed to it.
02:22
Well, the thing is, this is the first time today I've heard about this situation that tobacco harm reduction is not accepted even by people who work in drug harm reduction. So to me, this was new information. To be honest, I don't really understand why, because to me it makes no sense. And having a lot of people around me who have been smokers but had to quit for whatever reason, and a few years ago, no one knew about vaping or snoozed the first time I hear about it today and how it helped in Sweden. So I think this information has to be out there and just put it as available as possible on the market, as you would say, and just see if it works because you have to talk about the policy advisors and opinion makers and the people who make the difference for the legislation.
03:16
So the strap line for the event this year's, tobacco arm reduction, here for good. Is it here for good?
03:23
Yeah, it definitely is here for good, yes. It has changed the whole thing. If you look at in the past, it was pretty much a pharma thing, right? So you can see now that the companies are developing, are moving, are transforming themselves. So it's definitely for good. I have no doubt about it.
03:39
How about you? What do you think of the conference so far this year?
03:42
Well, I think for me it's one of the best conferences regarding homosexual, actually, in which you can find people with completely different backgrounds talking about the same topic and following kind of same goal. So I really believe it is very useful and very interesting in general, and we are going forward and hopefully in a short period of time, getting new things regarding this relevant topic that is home reduction.
04:14
How's the conference going for you this year? What's been your favorite session?
04:19
The nicotine and the effects of nicotine. There was yesterday in the afternoon, and I don't know about this point and a lot of information that I don't know. I am a smoker. I am a journalist too, but I don't have in my hands or maybe for the regulation in Spain that is really strong. I don't have information and for me it's really new.
04:56
Let me ask you this. It seems that Health Canada is doing a pretty good job managing the Vaping file. Yes, thank you. It's sad, right? Because for Vaping to work, it needs to have three things. It is to be effective, which means you need a lot of nicotine. It needs to be affordable, which means you can't tax it. It has to be enjoyable, which means you don't have flavors. So here in Canada, we're trying to get rid of the three things that actually make Vaping work. I was a little hub poisonly because several groups have been criticizing Health Canada because they had this thing about a 5% by 2035 tobacco endgame, and clearly they're not going to meet that. And in England and in New Zealand, when they realized they weren't going to meet their tobacco endgame, they had a comprehensive review of their tobacco control policy, which included Vaping as a way to help them meet their target. And I was a little optimistic that Canada may go that way. But now, pretty much out of left field, they have this strange idea that if we put warning labels on individual cigarettes, that's going to make a huge difference. And I think that's just going to be a huge distraction. I mean, some bureaucrat is going to say, oh, we've done something. We've done something that nobody else has done before and they're going to get cued off and they're going to get awards for that. But cigarette smokers are also very good at ignoring all the warning labels that are already on cigarettes. I'm sure that an extra warning label on an individual cigarette is going to make absolutely no difference to them. Why is the consumer important in this whole mix?
06:27
Well, because we are the stakeholders. And if it was in any other situation, whether it was to do with drugs, whether it's to do with patient's care in hospital, whether it's to do with blood cancer, I mean, they put a whole load of effort into bringing in the stakeholders in this because actually, we are the experts of us. We are the experts. Nobody is more expert than we are. And if in fact, they were to ask us, which sadly, they don't, on the contrary, they ban us. They ban people from coming to the GFN, which is ridiculous. I've been coming here since 2015, 2016. It is the one place there are others. But in my opinion, this has always been the place where consumers and scientists and some industry as well, from both sides, can all get together. And I love it. I've missed him. So, I mean, heads up to the GFN.