Back vaping, beat smoking? No! Back choice, beat prohibition

I have written an article for the trade magazine Tobacco Reporter:

Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ rights group Forest, reminds us that many smokers enjoy smoking and have no wish to quit—a fact that is often overlooked as companies compete to “unsmoke” the world.

The 1500-word article appears in the January 2022 edition and is based on my contribution to a panel discussion at the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum in London last year. It begins:

The announcement in December that the New Zealand government intends to ban the sale of tobacco to anyone born after 2008 is merely the latest example of a process dubbed “creeping prohibition.” Smoking bans, the prohibition of flavored cigarettes and punitive taxation are just three measures that have only one aim and that’s to eradicate smoking and create a utopian “smoke-free” society.

Thereafter my principal point, as it was at GTNF, is that there are millions of adults who enjoy smoking and don’t want to quit and everyone - the tobacco industry, vaping advocates, public health campaigners and politicians - should respect their choice.

I mention the tobacco company Philip Morris International (PMI) and their war on smoking and, without identifying the group by name, I also have a pop at the World Vapers’ Alliance which, I discovered last week, has been ‘secretly’ funded by British American Tobacco.

Referring to the WVA campaign ‘Back Vaping, Beat Smoking’, I wrote:

The campaign logo features a boxing glove, and one campaign banner features a boxing ring with two boxers inside the ring. One represents vaping, the other smoking. The figure that represents “smoking” is cowering in a corner. The message is clear and, in my view, unnecessarily provocative. There are many positive ways to promote vaping to smokers, and this isn’t one of them.

As at GTNF, I conclude:

Millions of adults enjoy smoking and don’t want to quit. The war on smoking is therefore a war on choice and pleasure, and users of all recreational nicotine products should be fighting as one united army. Instead, by failing to support smokers who don’t want to stop, many tobacco harm reduction advocates are foolishly, for short-term gain, weakening the efforts of those who truly believe in freedom of choice and personal responsibility. And if we lose that battle, I guarantee we will lose the war on nicotine too.

To read the article (Back Choice, Beat Prohibition), click here.

Below: on the consumer panel at GTNF 2021 - photo courtesy GTNF