TabExpo - a lesson in resilience

I was going to write about TabExpo, the tobacco trade exhibition that took place in Amsterdam last week, but I’m not sure there’s much to say that would interest readers.

The congress part of it, which I MC’d over three days, was like a mini conference. It took place on the floor of the exhibition hall that was filled with over 100 stands representing the entire tobacco chain from leaf growers to tobacco manufacturers from all over the world.

Naturally, many companies wanted to promote their latest innovative products, most of them smoke free, but it wasn’t like combustible tobacco was the black sheep of the family, as is the case at most tobacco-related events these days.

My favourite part of each day was before visitors started to arrive. Getting there early, I would grab a double espresso from a pop-up coffee stand and wander around the almost deserted exhibition hall before finding a quiet corner where I could sit and edit the opening comments I had drafted the night before.

In truth, I was a bit concerned when I found out I was expected to give a ten minute ‘overview’ at the start of each day’s programme, as well as a 15-minute summary at the end of the final day, but it worked out OK and I told myself that no-one would remember what I said anyway, which is probably true.

MC’ing even a small conference like this was a new experience for me and I enjoyed it more than I expected. The biggest problem occurred on the first day when we inexplicably under-ran by 30 minutes and I had to think of something to talk about to fill the vacuum while we waited for the panellists to arrive for the final session.

Another issue concerned the pronunciation of some of the speakers’ names. I did my best and whenever I could I asked them in advance so I could write the name phonetically, but some names I mangled out of all recognition.

The name Omar Rahmanadi, CEO of BMJ, one of the industry’s leading producers of tobacco papers, doesn’t look too difficult but the way he said it, and the way I said it, were poles apart.

The biggest tongue twister was Stavroula Anastasopoulou of ECigIntellence. After several stabs I gave up and she became, simply, ‘Stav’.

Even some of the simpler names proved problematic. For example, I discovered too late that Maggie Gowen, executive director of the Global Vaping Standards Association, should have been pronounced ‘Go-wen’ not ‘Gow-en’.

Anyway, the agenda was pretty wide-ranging and it concluded on Thursday with a session hosted by the Foundation for a Smoke-free World whose chosen panellists discussed the organisation’s ‘Smoke-Free Index’ which is intended to rate the world’s top 15 tobacco companies in terms of their perceived commitment to achieve a smoke-free world ‘within this generation’.

During the Q&As I couldn’t help asking the question that I’m sure other people were thinking and had indeed been hinted at by a member of the audience:

The Foundation is funded by Philip Morris International. I appreciate you say you are independent of PMI but how do you think other tobacco companies will respond to being evaluated by a body funded exclusively by a commercial rival?

Wearing my Forest hat I also queried another Foundation initiative - a series of global stakeholder meetings - pointing out that no-one from the Foundation had reached out to Forest despite the fact that we have been representing a rather important stakeholder, the consumer, for 40 years.

I later addressed the Foundation’s key goal in my closing remarks:

While I respect the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, I reject their goal of a smoke-free world. I reject it because there are millions of adults who know the health risks but choose to smoke because they enjoy it.

Many confirmed smokers admit they are addicted but the pleasure outweighs the problem of addiction.

In the future the important thing is to offer adults a wide range of products – including a range of reduced risk products – inform and update them with the latest evidence about the pros and cons, including the potential health risks – and empower them to make an informed choice. In short, let consumers – not politicians or over-zealous public health campaigners – decide.

As long as there are adults who choose to smoke and don’t want to quit, we must never abandon them because in a free society choice and personal responsibility should be paramount.

Smoking has been around not for decades, not even for centuries, but for thousands of years. So let me conclude with this observation:

If the tobacco industry is to meet the needs and desires of all its customers it has to balance the brave new world of electronic nicotine delivery systems with the familiar old world of tobacco.

In my view, talk of a smoke-free world is not just unachievable, it is also undesirable because the only way we can get there is through denormalisation and creeping prohibition.

I also addressed the issue of regulation which was a recurring theme during the congress:

One speaker compared the US and the UK and said that in the US there is no clear path to regulation, no marketing standards, no nicotine strength restrictions, and conflicting government agencies.

No-one, of course, believes that e-cigarettes should be unregulated, but be careful what you wish for. Public health is always looking for the next logical step and I don’t believe anti-smoking campaigners will ever be satisfied until they have eradicated all nicotine use. Their goal is not a smoke-free world but a nicotine-free world.

Another speaker, I noted, felt that Juul has been unfairly made a scapegoat but he added that, in his view, it was a tactical error for the company not to push back.

He’s right, I said. The more concessions you agree the more concessions will be demanded of the industry.

Overall, though, the lesson I took from TabExpo was one of resilience. However it evolves, the tobacco industry will outlive us all. That much is very clear.