‘Banning Alternative Tobacco Products Will Boost Illicit Trade’

Aside from precluding the choice for smokers, banning the use of alternative tobacco products would encourage illicit cigarettes trade, experts have said.

They expressed the view in a document entitled: ‘From Tobacco Control to Risk Reduction; The Opinion of Experts Between Bans and Innovation’.

In a 31-page document, it was observed that banning alternative products ‘would mean looking the other way, favouring a status quo dominated by cigarettes and encouraging illicit trade”.

The experts insisted that such a scenario is happening in countries that are strict in enforcing a ban on the alternative tobacco products.

The document, which focuses on challenges and prospects of implementing the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), harped on the need for policy choices based on established scientific evidence.

On the now postponed FCTC Conference of Parties (CoP) initially scheduled to take place in Panama, the experts noted thus: ‘The hope is that the forthcoming Conference of the Parties can represent an opportunity for public health but also, in the spirit of the United Nations, a moment of confrontation to guide policy choices based on established scientific evidence”.

It is estimated that non-communicable diseases-mainly cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, cancer and diabetes- are responsible for the death of over 36 million people every year.

Citing a World Health Organisation report, the document observed that 63% of deaths globally are related to non-communicable diseases with low and middle-income countries having over 90% of such deaths.

Our correspondent reports that since cigarette smoking is the single most widely predictable cause of cardiovascular disease and cancer, there is the need to prioritise tobacco harm reduction.