The Global Forum on Nicotine is taking place in Warsaw this week.
I’m not there because for the umpteenth time Forest hasn't been asked to provide a speaker, not even a panellist, to discuss consumer issues despite our 43-year history and our consistent advocacy of reduced risk products as an alternative to combustible tobacco.
Here, for example, is what I wrote only this week for the online magazine Spiked, albeit with an important qualification:
Evidence suggests that e-cigarettes have played a significant role in reducing smoking rates over the past decade. Nevertheless, while e-cigarettes and other reduced-risk products must be subject to light-touch regulation, proportionate to the much smaller risk they pose to consumers, no smoker should be forced to use them as an alternative to combustibles. Switching from cigarettes to e-cigarettes or any other reduced-risk product must be voluntary.
The crucial thing is to offer smokers a choice of reduced-risk products alongside tobacco products, inform and update them with the latest evidence about the risks and benefits, and encourage them to make their own informed choices. In short, let the consumer – not politicians or over-zealous public-health campaigners – decide. Most importantly, respect people’s choices, even if you disagree with them.
Unfortunately even those views appear to be a step too far for many vaping advocates. Choice is all well and good but respecting and publicly defending the choices of those who prefer to smoke? Never!
Anyway here are some previous posts I have written about GFN:
Thoughts on GFN20 (2020)
GFN - just another echo chamber? (2019)
GFN: I would if I could but I can’t (2017)
I have always been respectful, even complimentary, about the event but two years ago I concluded:
To sum up, GFN20 was fine as far as it went, but it could be so much more if the organisers were prepared to welcome a wider range of opinion from outside the little bubble they have created for themselves.
It may also explain why the rise of vaping has stalled in some territories. Create an echo chamber and you end up talking only to yourselves, which is what I sense is happening here.
Sadly I can’t see anything changing which is why I'm giving the conference a miss. Again.
Btw, I know it can be difficult, albeit not impossible, to change the programme at short notice but I do hope the organisers consider a short session devoted to issues raised by the 'independent' Khan report published in the UK last week.
One, it would be topical.
Two, the UK is frequently described as a 'world leader in tobacco control' so the report might have some significance globally, especially if one or two of its recommendations are adopted by government.
Three, I would love to know what some of the speakers and delegates make of Javed Khan's 'support' for vaping and his proposal to mimic the New Zealand Government's approach to tobacco control by adopting a system of creeping prohibition towards tobacco.
Personally I feel the GFN programme has become a bit boring and a session that allows people to respond to a recently published and widely publicised report might breathe some life into the event.
It would need a diverse panel of speakers to do it justice but where there’s a will there’s a way.
Other ideas available on request!