Conference calls
Friday, September 23, 2016 at 13:34
Simon Clark

Next week I'm attending the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum in Brussels.

Formerly called the Global Tobacco Network Forum, the name was changed a couple of years ago to reflect the increasing focus on emerging products, especially e-cigarettes.

When I say "increasing focus", delegates at GTNF could be forgiven for thinking the tobacco industry has moved on from smoking altogether.

Last year, as Dick Puddlecote reminded me on his blog last night, there was a moment when I felt like a "pork chop at a bar mitzvah".

This year I thought long and hard before deciding to attend. It's not cheap and I couldn't see anything on the programme that would enable me to raise some of the issues that concern smokers who don't want to quit.

Consequently, to ensure the issue of smokers' rights isn't completely overlooked at GTNF 2016, Forest is 'sponsoring' a networking drinks reception.

In its defence GTNF is the only forum I know that brings together a wide range of tobacco stakeholders and public health professionals allowing them to share a platform, network and have proper adult debates.

Next week therefore I will be rubbing shoulders and chatting to many of the people listed here. I may even have a drink with my old friend Clive Bates, the former director of ASH who has been attending GTNF almost as long as I have and is good company over a late night beer (if he hasn't fallen asleep).

Deborah Arnott, Clive's successor at ASH, won't be there, of course. Nor will the usual gaggle of backward-looking public health activists who continue to stick their heads in the sand in the hope that the tobacco industry will eventually become such a pariah it will implode or disappear.

That will never happen, not in my lifetime. What GTNF represents is an industry in transition, working hard to develop harm reduction products that will appeal to millions of consumers worldwide, encouraging smokers to switch to 'safer' products through choice not coercion.

At GTNF however my job is to remind anyone who's prepared to listen that millions of adults enjoy smoking and have no plans to stop.

Even in the UK where smoking rates are at their lowest ever level, smokers represent one in six of the adult population. As consumers of a legal product their rights must be defended.

Also, if the industry wants more smokers to switch to e-cigarettes or other emerging products they will have to develop better products that offer the same or greater level of pleasure and convenience as combustible cigarettes.

So my message to representatives of the tobacco industry at GTNF will be the same as last year and the year before:

"Develop new products but don't forget your core customers. Millions enjoy smoking. Don't abandon them on the altar of public health."

Article originally appeared on Simon Clark (http://taking-liberties.squarespace.com/).
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