Dear Mr Clergeau, dear Mr Bond,
The European Network for Smoking and Tobacco Prevention (ENSP) is acting in a manner that is risking your credibility and reputation, opening you up to a possible investigation. The NGO is organising an event in your names on 17 November 2026 entitled “The Science Behind Recreational Nicotine Products” where they are selectively blocking certain stakeholders from participating and engaging in this policy discourse.
The European Parliament is a public institution paid for by the European public. Every EU citizen has a right to enter and engage in European policy discussions. By extension, European civil servants, like MEPs, are responsible to uphold this right to a free and open dialogue among stakeholders and among all European citizens.
ENSP is organising an event that is intentionally interfering with this citizens’ right. They have blocked a number of participants from attending on the basis that their published views go against the NGO’s political agenda against tobacco harm reduction. In other words, the ENSP event organised in your names, goes against the spirit of open public engagement and stakeholder dialogue (concepts central to the European policy process since the 2000 White Paper on Governance). It is exclusion by design.
On Monday, 2 November, an invitation to your event was emailed to an undisclosed number of European stakeholders. This invitation was shared to a writers’ group that publishes articles and studies on tobacco harm reduction that same Monday morning. Several of us registered immediately for your event, on the very morning the invitations went out. By Friday, 6 November, all of us received identical emails written by ENSP on your behalf to inform us that our registrations to the event were cancelled (see my mail below, I can produce many similar copies).
Lived Experiences that Need to be Heard
Our tobacco harm reduction writers’ group is made up of individuals whose lives have been changed by alternative nicotine products like e-cigarettes, snus or nicotine pouches. We, or our loved ones, have been able to quit smoking and reclaim healthy lives and we use this energy to write about it so other smokers know there is an alternative to continued smoking and health decline. From our lived experiences, we know what works (like flavours, dose levels, proper product control...) and we know what doesn’t work (higher taxes, black markets, patches, gums and lozenges).
NGOs like ENSP, and other Bloomberg Philanthropies funded organisations partnering with the speakers at your event, want you to believe that tobacco harm reduction advocates are acting on behalf of Big Tobacco. From my experience, the opposite is the case as most people from this writers’ group have spent a good part of their lives cursing and battling against Big Tobacco, and we finally found a means to win back our health.
Each of us have important stories to tell (note that the European consultations held earlier this year presented more than 120,000 stories, most in favour of promoting vaping and nicotine pouches). I would gladly share my story with you, but it seems that you are not interested in listening or opening up your event to any real dialogue. We have grown to expect such narrow-minded activism from groups like ENSP, but not from taxpayer-funded European civil servants like yourselves.
A Common NGO Tactic
As your event’s organiser, ENSP, could not prove any of our registrations were supported or tied to the tobacco industry (a warning they cited in the registration form), they reverted to an old tactic of saying that “the event has reached full capacity”. I don’t know how many times NGOs have used MEPs to organise events in the European Parliament claiming the same excuse to, as they say: “cleanse the room from any bad air” only to show that the rooms are half empty on the day of the event.
If the room was at full capacity already, then could you please explain why people could still register for your event as of Monday, 9 November?
As at least five of us who registered on the very morning the invitations went out received the same email, I would like you to answer the following questions:
Is participation to your event decided by politics rather than a first-come, first-served basis?
Was your event at “full capacity” before any invitations were sent out?
Couldn’t you reserve a larger room given how important this issue is for consumers and health advocates?
Is this event public or, in reality, a restricted event (paid by the public)?
Have you provided sufficient transparency about attendance criteria?
How much did ENSP, or their own sponsor, Kenvue, pay the Parliament Magazine to co-host this event?
Could you please provide me with the numbers who have registered and at what time within the process that you decided to cancel the registrations of the tobacco harm reduction advocates?
If you are only now learning of the anti-dialogue tactics of your NGO organiser, would you be willing to open the registration process to those they have decided to exclude?
On the basis of your replies, I will decide whether to file a complaint with the European Ombudsman. Democracy not only dies in darkness, it also only thrives when dialogue is open.
This muzzling of alternative views, part of a cynical denial of dialogue tactic, is an all too common experience when environmental-health activist NGOs and foundations organise events in the name of MEPs. But a bigger cloud is looming over your event. You are leaving yourselves open to an important conflict of interest that undermines any credibility your event may pretend to portend.
Conflict of Interest
Your event is sponsored by the American pharmaceutical corporation, Kenvue (formerly part of J&J). They manufacture a large number of products that have been marketed as smoking cessation aids, but that, after decades of campaigns, have not succeeded in any significant long-term reductions in smoking.
Kenvue's nicotine replacement therapy portfolio includes:
Nicorette® Gum
Nicorette® Lozenge
Nicorette® QuickMist / Mouth Spray (including connected options like QuickMist SmartTrack™)
Nicorette® Inhaler / Inhalator
NicoDerm® / Nicorette® InvisiPatch (Transdermal Patch)
Nicorette® Microtab (sublingual tablets) and nasal spray formats in select international markets
As most people who successfully quit smoking via vaping, snus or nicotine pouches have also tried to quit smoking with these Kenvue products (usually without success and after spending a lot of money), it is clearly in Kenvue’s interest to not allow pro-tobacco harm reduction experts into the room.
They cannot afford to have harm reduction advocates present the European public with some embarrassing data that would undermine the corporation’s marketing strategy.
They cannot afford to have European citizens understand that smoking cessation rates have not declined with the use of these Kenvue products.
They cannot afford to have their campaigns against tobacco harm reduction strategies exposed to the European health community.
So Kenvue fund ENSP and find some useful idiots in the European Parliament to submit to their strategy. And then they pay a magazine to clear the room of any possible opponents so they can control the narrative.
How is the active involvement of Kenvue and the intentional exclusion of tobacco harm reduction advocates from a European Parliament event, held in the names of Christophe Clergeau, MEP, and the Parliament Magazine, doing anything to advance the European dialogue process? It will be seen as nothing more than a well-orchestrated farce.
Does the European Parliament, the Parliament Magazine or any credible MEP want to be identified with such a whitewash strategy conducted by an American corporation? Then again, Kenvue is an active advertiser, content provider and partner of the Parliament Magazine, so maybe I am just terribly naive to the corruption going on around the House of the European People.
Note that this letter will also be published and we will add your replies to the publication.
Kind regards
David Zaruk, PhD.