Not a fair COP - A two cops story

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Not a Fair COP

Nicotine users in Geneva during FCTC COP8 in 2018

Have you heard about COPs? Not the guys in uniforms, but “Conferences Of Parties (COPs).” Usually, it comes with a number, COP9, COP21, COP26… What does it mean? It’s pretty simple: each multilateral United Nations (UN) treaty is signed and/or ratified by some countries. When a country ratifies a UN treaty, it becomes “Party” to the treaty and gains a seat at COPs for that treaty. Each Party sends a delegation to the COP, which is the decision making body for that treaty.

There are many different COPs because there are many UN treaties (currently over 560). UN treaties cover many aspects of our everyday life, binding countries and other bodies to make international obligations.

The most well known COP is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) COP. Each UNFCCC COP receives great media coverage. The next one, COP26, will be held in Glasgow in November 2021.

Many organizations and activists organize side events around all these COPS. There are open discussions around the world before UN COP meetings, as well as during and after these events. For example, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has organised several meetings for the COP26.

These events are a great opportunity to openly exchange ideas and knowledge on how to best improve the treaty and its implementation around the world. Unfortunately, the official decisions made during the official UNFCCC COPs don’t always reflect the enthusiasms of all the activists and other stakeholders to save the planet. But, at least the discussions are open and the issues fully discussed.

In the UN ecosystem, there are many more obscure COPs. Some are held behind closed doors. One good example is the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The FCTC COP9 will be held in November this year, in The Hague, under this COP’s Islamic Republic of Iran presidency. Decisions taken at the FCTC COP9 will directly impact the health of 1.1 billion people around the world who smoke, 80% of whom live in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs).

FCTC COP9 will have no wide media coverage. There are no known inter-parliamentary group discussions. There is no open platform that promotes dialogue, awareness, education and commitment. The agenda, and even the names of the delegates, are kept secret. Both are heavily influenced by non-governmental organizations that are funded by large US foundations. No person impacted by their decisions has a voice.

How is it possible that the two COPs described above are so diametrically different? One listens to the voice of impacted people. The other turns a deliberate deaf ear. Ironically, both treaties are directly linked to the global UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), whose mantra is: Leave no one behind.

The reason is that the FCTC has been funded and co-opted by wealthy US foundations that have an unrealistic solution for people who use nicotine: quit or die. UNFCCC COPs embrace innovation to mitigate climate change. But FCTC COPs reject innovation and the voices of anyone who suggests that safer nicotine alternatives to deadly combustible tobacco products could save millions of lives.

Over the past 20 years, since the FCTC treaty was signed, it has veered far beyond the original intent of the signatories. They refuse new strategies to prevent tobacco-related death and disease, including Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR), despite the fact that the FCTC treaty’s Art. 1 explicitly defines “tobacco control” as including harm reduction.

It’s time for a fundamental change. Traditional tobacco control strategies have so far succeeded in reducing smoking rates, but primarily only in high-income countries. We — people who use safer nicotine — want FCTC COPs to be more open, more democratic, more science-driven, more respectful of our human rights… as most other UN COPs are.

We are not alone. In the UK, an All-Party Parliamentary Group recently published a report which is highly critical on FCTC COPs and the WHO’s steadfast THR-denialist position. The UK is a global leader in tobacco control and THR with one of the lowest smoking rates in the world. The UK now wants to do even better, but is feeling hamstrung by the FCTC’s current dogmatic position.

We, at INNCO, ask citizens around the world who believe that respectful open-minded multilateral dialogue is the only way to solve issues, to carefully and critically review the work produced by the FCTC COPs and the WHO, especially with regard to THR. Question your government. Question your parliament. Ask what your country’s position will be at COP9. Use freedom of information and transparency laws if necessary, and if possible.

We call, once again, on the FCTC Secretariat to listen to the voices of consumers, and especially ex-smokers like us who use safer nicotine alternatives to quit or reduce exposure to toxic forms of tobacco. These are basic human rights and social justice issues: We deserve a seat at the table in all discussions of policies that affect us.

We also ask the media around the world to cover FCTC COPs just as they would for other UN COPs, to better inform the public. We ask parliament groups around the world to be inspired by the UK parliament group and to question their own government’s position.

Finally, we specifically call upon parliament groups to collaborate through the IPU, and/or other informal meetings, as they do for other UN COPs, in order to ensure that future FCTC COPs are an open place for dialogue with all stakeholders, including most importantly: “people who use safer nicotine to quit toxic forms of tobacco.”

Nothing about us without us!

#FCTC #COP9 #UNFCCC #COP26 #IPU #UK

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INNCO is funded by hundreds of individual adults who use safer nicotine and by the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. The Foundation is a US nonprofit 501(c)(3) private foundation with a mission to end smoking in this generation. Under the Foundation’s Bylaws and Pledge Agreement with its funder, the Foundation is independent from that funder. Details are available on the Foundation’s website (www.smokefreeworld.org). INNCO is independent of (and was established before) the Foundation. Our mission, purpose and goals are driven by our Member Organizations in 35 countries around the world. INNCO members are unpaid volunteers: ex-smokers who, as a condition of membership, agree not to accept funding or direction from any tobacco firm. The contents of this article are the sole opinion and responsibility of INNCO, and under no circumstances shall be regarded as reflecting the positions of the Foundation or any other entity.

 

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The next article in this series by INNCO.



The WHO tells us: Don’t say “safer” anymore!

The last WHO report on tobacco harm reduction is a masterpiece of misleading disinformation

A few days ago, we focused on the differences between UNFCCC COP26 and WHO FCTC COP9. Let’s dig a bit further in the strange world of tobacco control. Would we allow a United Nations (UN) report on climate change to be funded by a billionaire climate change denier? An official report on vaccines to be funded by a billionaire anti-vaxxer? A worldwide LGBTQIA+ community inclusion report to be funded by a billionaire homophobe and racist? Most probably not, but for the World Health Organisation (WHO) it’s not an issue at all when it comes to nicotine users’ lives.

On July 27, 2021, the WHO published a report paid for by Bloomberg Philanthropies and partially written by people outside the WHO who belong to organisations funded by Mr Bloomberg who runs a crusade against any form of Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR). Unsurprisingly, the unbalanced and misleading WHO report denies any benefit to THR. By using the same deceptive tactics as the tobacco industry to hide the truth, the so-called “experts” brought out a masterpiece of disinformation. Even worse, it’s an open call for global bans of harm reduction tools in favor of deadly tobacco industries’ products.

How is it possible?
Global tobacco control has functioned in a closed loop for too long. A highly selective list of people, groups and NGOs, all more or less linked with Bloomberg philanthropies, set the strategies, plans and programmes, the same people collect data and the same people review their efficiency with no critical thinking. The tobacco industry interference threat induced a “bunkerisation” of the global tobacco control movement. Now, any critic that doesn’t fit the fixed ideology is dismissed as a tobacco industry plot against them to avoid any evolution and protect an useful status quo. The truth doesn’t matter anymore. People don’t matter anymore. Even nicotine users’ deaths don’t matter anymore.

The WHO seems to forget the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Art 5.1 necessary updates and reviews of tobacco control strategies, plans and programmes. In place, the same old un-updated strategies are pushed again and again without real critical review. Now these outdated strategies are pushed over very different kinds of products than the deadly combustible cigarettes. No distinction is made if these products contain or not tobacco and/or nicotine, if they emit smoke or not. They are bluntly qualified as “harmful” and as “a deliberate distraction” to undermine tobacco control efforts. Understand: the 98 million people worldwide, who use these products are nothing but an industry conspiracy against Mr Bloomberg’s will.

No nuance allowed
Everything is equally bad for a WHO under influence. The adjective “safer” can’t be used even if it describes a true reality. Using this adjective is necessarily an “aggressive promotion” for the global tobacco control movement and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, current Director-General of the Geneva based UN body. But nowhere in the report you will find a call to ban the most deadly products. After almost 20 years of market existence, the growing popularity of vaping devices offers a real chance to win over the deadly combustible tobacco products. The WHO is not interested and wants the less risky products to be banned or regulated-out-of-existence. The bad news is: these guys are out of reality and can’t adapt, they do harm and are proud of it. All countries have the obligation to protect the health of their people, including by reducing harm. How a ban on vaping products, while the deadly combustibles products stay on the market, could quickly reduce the harm and protect the health of citizens, knowing that it takes decades to see some light results with the application of the classic Bloomberg’s MPOWER measures?

This unfair report sadly shows the tremendous efforts made to avoid a very needed revolution in tobacco control and tobacco industries. The war between the “white knights” and the “devil”, from a nicotine user pragmatic perspective, is doing much more harm than good and leaves 1.1 billion people behind. In a world where more and more people finally recognise that psychoactive substances use will never disappear, no matter how tough the war against it, it’s time to drastically improve the obsolete tobacco control strategies with THR. Without the outdated tobacco control and tobacco industries interferences, harm reduction, driven by users and quality science, would have already saved many more lives.

Vaping devices, snus and nicotine pouches are effective ways for people who use nicotine to protect themselves and bystanders against tobacco smoke. As stated in FCTC Art. 8.1, tobacco smoke is the real enemy. Therefore, the provisions in Art. 8.2 should push the FCTC Parties to embrace THR, not to fight it. But since the conception of the FCTC, Bloomberg linked groups constantly pushed their most extremist views to drive a shift from “smoke-free” to “tobacco-free” and now to “nicotine-free” while 1.1 billion people worldwide are still smoking. It’s time to stop this sunk cost fallacy and to come back to basics. THR has to be a strong part of any realistic tobacco control strategy. The FCTC Art. 1 includes harm reduction in the definition of tobacco control, a disturbing truth for the extremists.

Is nicotine that bad?
To understand the harm reduction concept in this field, years of disinformation on nicotine have to be whipped out. Imagine that, for historical reasons, most people were smoking ground coffee beans to get their caffeine. We would have today a billionaire funded coffee control movement calling for a ban on coffee machines, trying to argue that drinking coffee is no safer than smoking it because it contains caffeine and kids may drink coffee. If, in the same imaginary world, people would never have started to smoke tobacco, nicotine use would only be lightly regulated. Both nicotine and caffeine are light psychoactive substances. They can induce a dependence, as do most psychoactive substances, but their effects on human health are low when they are used without combustion.

And it’s the central point. For decades, the tobacco control movement has wrongly demonized nicotine as responsible for all tobacco related diseases. If smoked nicotine use can be seen as an addiction because of the smoke induced diseases, nicotine use without combustion is far away from the definition of an addiction. But, of course, it’s difficult to admit wrongdoings and lies about nicotine when you are on a prohibitionist agenda. Therefore, the Bloomberg paid WHO report is an impressive collection of the worst nicotine myths, they call them “rationals” with no shame. It seriously questions the credibility of the WHO, if any is left yet.

Who controls tobacco control?
After the publication of this unethical and biased report, questions naturally arise: Who controls tobacco control? Can we still let a bunch of extremists freely run the global tobacco control movement without critical review? What is a conflict of interest? Does it only concern the industry? The next UN World Health Assembly (WHA), the WHO governing body, should seriously and critically review the work done by the WHO and the influence that Bloomberg paid entities have on its misleading and anti-scientific reports in the tobacco control field.