{"id":30142,"date":"2025-11-03T11:19:58","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T11:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/?p=30142"},"modified":"2025-11-04T08:02:36","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T08:02:36","slug":"exclusive-rethink-the-status-quo-two-former-who-directors-call-for-radical-overhaul-of-global-nicotine-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/post\/exclusive-rethink-the-status-quo-two-former-who-directors-call-for-radical-overhaul-of-global-nicotine-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: \u201cRethink the status quo\u201d – two former WHO directors call for radical overhaul of global nicotine policy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Two former Directors at the World Health Organisation have called for<\/a> a radical overhaul of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control – the WHO\u2019s International Treaty on tobacco control policy – in an exclusive op-ed for Clearing the Air.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Derek Yach, a key figure in creating the WHO\u2019s tobacco policy in the 1990s, joined forces with Tikki Pang, who ran the WHO\u2019s Policy Research function, to pen the piece alongside leading economist Chris Snowdon and Clearing the Air\u2019s co-founder Peter Beckett.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a moment that requires courage\u201d, the piece concludes. \u201cCourage for governments to challenge old dogmas, courage for industry to align its resources with public health, and courage for civil society to uphold science over ideology\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctors remain a \u201ckey barrier to adoption\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yach and Pang specifically call out scientific journals and societies for failing doctors and medical professionals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cScientific societies and journals must recognize their ethical responsibility to ensure that the benefits of harm reduction are widely understood among healthcare professionals. Uninformed or misinformed clinicians remain a key barrier to adoption\u201d they write. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe very same societies and journals speaking out against the global spread of vaccine hesitancy need to review their policies and act accordingly\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A renewed focus on the developing world<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The group also lays out, in stark terms, what failing to embrace harm reduction means for poorer countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLow and middle income countries face decades of immense health and economic strain if urgent measures are not taken\u201d they argue. \u201cIt is in this sobering context that we believe COP11 must confront a pressing reality: harm reduction for tobacco is not a theoretical debate but a proven strategy with lifesaving outcomes\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They go on to contrast progress in more developed nations with that of the global South, where WHO tobacco policy is often taken on unquestioned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHeated tobacco product use has surged in Japan, South Korea, Italy, Poland, and Germany\u2026vaping has fast gained ground in the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, and Romania, where cigarette prevalence is falling rapidly as millions transition to lower-risk alternatives\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMeanwhile, in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland, the widespread use of snus and nicotine pouches has pushed smoking and cancer rates to some of the lowest levels recorded globally. These countries demonstrate that human behavior can be redirected in safer ways when consumers are presented with viable alternatives\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy contrast, in countries such as Indonesia, China, Egypt, and Jordan, male smoking rates still exceed 45 percent\u2014levels that Britain last saw in the 1960s\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Radical overhaul needed<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor many delegates [to the WHO\u2019s Framework Convention conference] and advocates, the call to rethink harm reduction will be uncomfortable\u201d they conclude. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDecades of justified distrust of tobacco companies created an environment in which it was safer\u2014politically and morally\u2014to reject any alignment with industry. But this rigidity risks entrenching harm where greater flexibility could save millions of lives. Just as public health eventually embraced needle exchange programs, opioid substitution therapy, and more recently harm reduction in alcohol use, it is time to apply similar pragmatism to nicotine\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Two former Directors at the World Health Organisation have called for a radical overhaul of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control – the WHO\u2019s International Treaty on tobacco control policy – in an exclusive op-ed for Clearing the Air. Derek Yach, a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":990004,"featured_media":30146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[466,257],"tags":[328,330,186,332,326],"slider":[],"class_list":["post-30142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusives","category-news","tag-germany","tag-italy","tag-nicotine","tag-poland","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/990004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30153,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30142\/revisions\/30153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30142"},{"taxonomy":"slider","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/slider?post=30142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}