"Off to Canberra today to help make smoking obsolete!"
I don't mind admitting that when I read that comment by Dr Attila Danko, president of the New Nicotine Alliance Australia, posted on Facebook on February 14, 2017, it raised my hackles a little.
I won't repeat my lengthy response but you can read it here – Enemies of choice.
As it happens the good doctor had been on my radar for a while. In 2015 he gave a speech at the Global Forum on Nicotine in Warsaw that was reported to me privately as follows:
Attila Danko brought the house down with a passionate (some might say overwrought) defence of ecigs and railed against the insane regulation of them in Australia.
I watched a video of it later and had to laugh. I'm all for passion but this was something else.
Delegates gave him a standing ovation, which is almost unheard of at an event like that.
Anyway, God love him, Danko popped up on my Twitter feed last weekend.
This was due to the fact that he was recently appointed 'medical director' at Nicovape, a "proudly independent New Zealand owned and operated e-cigarette device and liquid manufacturer".
According to Nicovape's website:
Under Australian laws, it is illegal to buy, possess or use liquid nicotine for vaping without a prescription from a registered Australian medical practitioner.
However, use and possession of liquid nicotine for a ‘therapeutic use’ (eg to quit or reduce smoking or to prevent relapse) is classified as a Schedule 4, which is legal to possess and use if the user has a prescription.
To cut to the chase:
Due to our exclusive affiliation with Australian registered medical practitioners, Nicovape allows you to legally purchase and possess nicotine containing e-cigarettes in Australia.
In other words, the company is selling its product not as a recreational device but as a medicinal tool available only on prescription.
There may be some very good reasons why Attila Danko has accepted his new role but it did seem at odds with his position as president of NNA Australia and one person (the group's estranged founder) was unimpressed.
Consumer product or 'prescription'? Dr Attila Danko now prescribing and endorsing Nicovape's prescription nicotine #vaping products as their Medical Director in Australia. Given up on vaping being a consumer product? Frankly I find this a betrayal . https://t.co/xlhICsAipo
— Donna (@DaviMaree) May 5, 2018
Since that and several more tweets appeared on Sunday, NNA Australia has announced that Danko has now resigned as president. As of this morning though he was still listed as a board member and there is no mention of his role with Nicovape.
I mention this not because I want to point the finger but because it raises some interesting issues. In particular, how close should vaping advocates align themselves with commercial interests?
As director of Forest, a group that receives donations from tobacco companies, it would be grossly hypocritical of me to criticise any group or individual who accepts money from the private sector.
What I would say is: transparency, transparency, transparency.
If vaping advocates get into bed with the industry - even via third parties - they should be open about it.
To be fair to Danko, there’s nothing clandestine about his new role. It's there, in black and white, on the Nicovape website ('Meet our doctors').
How that sits with others is up to them. Personally I don't have a problem with it as long as there is a clear line in the sand.
For example, I don't see how you can be on the board of an 'independent' vaping advocacy group while at the same time working for a company with a vested commercial interest.
Can you imagine the outcry if someone working for a tobacco company was on the board of Forest? (I can't imagine rival companies would be very happy about it either!)
As it happens, my predecessor at Forest was a huge advocate of air filtration systems as a solution to the issue of smoking in indoor public places.
She became quite an expert and when she left Forest she got a job with ... an air filtration company.
While she worked for Forest however she was a genuinely independent advocate, never promoting any specific brand or company.
It was only after she left Forest that she joined the air filtration industry and her appointment was open and transparent. (I seem to remember the company issued a press release.)
Vaping advocates should take note because I suspect Attila Danko won't be the last to make the switch from independent advocacy to a more commercially driven role.
Like former ministers who take jobs in a sector they gained some knowledge of while they were in government, there's nothing wrong with it, but perceptions do need to be handled.
There has to be a clear demarcation between independent advocacy and commercial interests and in my view NNA Australia got it wrong by not announcing Danko's resignation as president before he was revealed as 'medical director' of Nicovape.
If he’s still on the board he should probably resign from that too.