Kingsley Wheaton
Kingsley Wheaton, chief growth officer at BAT, posed an interesting question at the recent GTNF. “So, we must be even more courageous, speak to the outside world further still and come together even more,” he said near the end of his presentation. “Greater collaboration is key. Is it time, for example, for the GTNF to move from the networked forum that it is to operating more like a fully fledged NGO [nongovernmental organization]?”
Such a suggestion certainly provides something to ponder. For instance, while I take it that, since the suggestion was put forward by BAT, such an NGO would be legally viable, how would it be viewed by those cynical of the tobacco/nicotine industry’s motives and skeptical about the direction of travel of tobacco harm reduction (THR) as mapped out by those who participate in GTNFs?
I imagine that the suggestion was prompted by a concern that, whereas the concept and application of THR principles have weaved and are weaving a certain magic, the spell might be broken without further impetus, without further change. Indeed, the word change was used 12 times in the presentation.
But why is change necessary? After all, Wheaton told his audience that “[i]n the U.K., the U.S., Canada, France, New Zealand, Japan and Sweden, the needle is moving toward tobacco harm reduction.” In the U.K., Japan and Sweden, he said, more than half of BAT’s revenues now come from new-category products while across Europe that figure was more than 20 percent.
Well, change is necessary, I guess, because, on the flip side, globally, the needle stubbornly refuses to move fast enough. Overall, five-sixths of the company’s revenues still come from combustible products.
Of course, there are any number of general and country-specific issues determining why the countries named have moved the THR needle further than many of those not mentioned have, and many of those issues cannot be addressed by the tobacco/nicotine industry. Indeed, it was evident, listening to the presentation, that the industry cannot, on its own, end tobacco smoking. Far from it. “Can we look forward to a day when BAT sells its last cigarette?” Wheaton asked, before answering, “Yes, I think that is indeed within long-range view. But it will require more than just the efforts of industry or governments.”
Even the development and marketing of less risky tobacco and nicotine products is not just down to the industry, I guess. There is no point in developing products whose viability will fall foul of unhelpful regulation in a significant number of countries. I caught the end of the GTNF panel discussion on innovation at which the moderator ended the session by bewailing the fact that the innovations that had been discussed were unlikely to be introduced in the U.S. because of regulatory hurdles in that country. And the U.S., remember, is one of the countries that is counted among those that are moving the THR needle.
Most of the suggestions that Wheaton put forward as being necessary to reinvigorate THR have been made before but have proved devilishly difficult to implement. For instance, Wheaton made the point that in order to allow consumers to make informed decisions about what types of tobacco/nicotine products to use, public health needed to communicate risk accurately, and the industry needed the marketing freedoms to be allowed to communicate responsibly the benefits of switching from higher risk products to lower risk products. This is true, but while there is some movement in some countries toward such positions, in many countries, official information about the risks associated with tobacco and nicotine products is generally confusing and, in some cases, misleading.
While it was a little disappointing, I thought, that Wheaton did not spend time discussing the relative environmental merits of the various tobacco and nicotine products on offer, which the engaged consumer would also seek, he did make the point that the industry needed to demonstrate that it can change sustainably. This is correct in my view. There is little point in prolonging the lives of individuals if we are going to help bring forward the death of humanity at large.
BAT has a good record when it comes to research into lower risk products, and Wheaton made the point that science was the key to unlocking the potential of industry transformation from selling higher risk tobacco products to selling lower risk nicotine products. But he will know as well as anybody that not all the “science” points in the same direction because not all research is conducted in a scientific manner. At least one other GTNF session was taken up with a presentation demonstrating that the findings of some research funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration were not supported by the evidence but were nevertheless likely to influence regulations.
Wheaton admits that he doesn’t have all the answers. But he has laid down the challenge. “It is no longer the time for talk but time to act because tobacco harm reduction is too important for us not to,” he said.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are standing at a crossroads. It’s either more of the same, more ‘quit or die,’ more path of least resistance, or we can chart a new course with tobacco harm reduction as our goal.”–George Gay
The full text of Wheaton’s presentation is available here.