Tobacco Asia

Tobacco Asia 27 For the upcoming COP, it seems, the Secretariat has found a particularly clever way to tweak and combine FCTC articles to eliminate the subject of THR once and for all. Harm reduction is an evidence-based public health strategy— in fields such as drug use or HIV pre- vention—and even appears as one of the three strategic pillars of tobacco control in the FCTC preamble (Article 1(d)). Ar- ticle 5.2(b) calls for parties to adopt effec- tive measures and cooperate with others to prevent and reduce tobacco consump- tion, nicotine addiction, and exposure to tobacco smoke, while Article 5.3 seeks to protect tobacco control policies from "commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry." Conflating three issues together "Introducing tobacco harm reduction through the lens of Article 5.2, and plac- ing the term in scare quotes, implies that the approach is an invention of the to- bacco industry," GSTHR.org wrote in a September briefing paper. "It is only presented as a threat, allowing no recog- nition that safer nicotine products could offer many benefits to public health." "What they're doing with this is ba- sically elevating tackling nicotine addiction above the harms of tobacco smoke and combustible use," says Martin Cullip, in- ternational fellow at the Taxpayers Protec- tion Alliance's Consumer Center. "They claim harm reduction is merely an industry construct, not a legitimate public health strategy—which is odd, given that harm reduction is widely accepted in nearly ev- ery other health domain. But they're intent on ignoring it. Their goal seems clear: to push delegations to obstruct access to saf- er nicotine products at every turn." "As I reviewed and downloaded all the available papers ahead of COP11, I found myself reflecting on how far we've come," says Jeannie Cameron, manag- ing director of JCIC International, who attended all Intergovernmental Negotiat- ing Bodies and most COP meetings until she was excluded. "Having been involved since COP1 and even earlier, during the FCTC negotiations in 2000, this particu- lar COP feels like a turning point—a mo- ment where the focus shifts toward what I'd call the final battle in global tobacco control. The early COPs in 2006 and 2007 made real progress: we developed guidelines and built a framework for ac- tion. But over the past decade, COPs have felt stagnant—lots of discussion, but few concrete outcomes. COP11, though it hasn't happened yet, feels different. To me, it's poised to be a breakthrough—a COP where meaningful decisions are finally made." She adds that while nicotine was barely mentioned in the early days of FCTC— and appears only three times in the agreement—WHO has now broadened the treaty to cover nicotine and products that aren't even combustible. "It's almost like it's ac- cepted now," she notes. Playbook of endgame strategies The expert group report on forward-looking measures under agenda item 4.1 con- firms Cameron's and Cullip's views. It was established after COP10, held in Panama in February 2024, with its members selected by the Convention Secretariat—"cherry-

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