Health coup unfolding

A major report on the state of tobacco harm reduction around the world was launched in the UK yesterday.
No fire, no smoke: The global state of tobacco harm reduction 2018 is said, for the first time, to map the global regional and national availability and use of safer nicotine products (products, the use of which poses a significantly reduced health risk than is posed by smoking cigarettes), the regulatory responses to these products, and the public health potential of tobacco harm reduction.
The report, which runs to more than 100 pages, has an introductory chapter on tobacco harm reduction and others on: The continuing global epidemic of cigarette smoking; Safer nicotine products: a global picture; Consumers of safer nicotine products; Safer nicotine products and consumer health; Regulation and control; and Human rights, public health and tobacco harm reduction advocacy.
In addition, tucked away in the back is a useful Vaping timeline, though it is important to stress that the report, while focused on vaping, also looks at other lower-risk products such as snus.
In conclusion, the author, Harry Shapiro, describes the report as an attempt to enumerate and explain the advantages of embracing harm reduction as a legitimate approach to help tackle the global smoking epidemic.
‘Apart from being founded on the well-established principles of the right to health for the world’s citizens, as enshrined in many international documents, it is also grounded in evidence-based pragmatism,’ the conclusion says in part.
The conclusion goes on to say that those seeking harm reduction should not be distracted by concerns about ‘gateway’ effects or ‘re-normalizing’ smoking for which there was no robust evidence. And it says that people should not be overly swayed by talk of nicotine ‘addiction’, which had become a freighted word.
And it adds that it is important that over-proscriptive regulation and control is not allowed to deny access to products that have the potential to be one of the most dramatic public health coups of modern times – a coup that costs governments, international agencies and NGOs nothing.
The report was undertaken by Knowledge-Action-Change and supported solely by a grant from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. It was launched in the UK at an event hosted by Viscount Ridley at the Palace of Westminster.
Early next year, the report is due to be presented in a number of countries during a series of day-long harm-reduction roadshows.