Advocating For Tobacco Harm Reduction

Calls to Action for advocates are listed below. Your voice matters!

Global

Special Rapporteur on the right to health | inquiry into harm reduction - deadline 27th May

• Copied with permission from an email from Gerry Stimson
• The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health has now decided to devote her next thematic report to the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, in October 2024 on the theme of Harm reduction for sustainable peace and development.

• She has issued a request for information here:
  • Spanish
  • French
  • English

• You might recall that last November I sent you a previous request from the Special Rapporteur for her report on harm reduction and a right to health. She will present this report on Drug policies and responses: a right to health framework at the upcoming 56th session of the Human Rights Council in June 2024. Several groups made submissions arguing that tobacco harm reduction should be included in that report.

• The new request says "the Special Rapporteur intends to focus on harm reduction as key public health interventions for populations that are often stigmatised and discriminated against".

• She is clearly very interested in harm reduction and human rights, mainly with respect to drugs. The new request for information doesn’t specifically mention tobacco harm reduction, smoking or safer nicotine products. But this is an opportunity to draw attention that THR is a right to health issue. It is also clear that THR should be integrated into policies and strategies for marginalised population - see for example the GSTHR Briefing on THR and homelessness https://gsthr.org/resources/briefing-papers/tobacco-harm-reduction-and-people-experiencing-homelessness-a-uk-perspective/ , and to help people accessing drug treatment and homelessness services given the high levels of smoking in these populations.

• There are several questions that may merit a case for tobacco harm reduction:

• • Please provide the specific challenges, or positive developments and examples of harm reduction interventions in communities, countries, or regions
  • What role do private actors (e.g., the pharmaceutical, tobacco, alcohol, food industries) play in real or apparent harm reduction policies, programmes, and practices that are available in your community, country, or region? What are the positive or negative impacts to public health, sustainable peace and development?
  • Please provide examples of good initiatives or practice undertaken to provide comprehensive harm reduction interventions for populations that are often criminalized, stigmatized and discriminated against in the context of drug use and drug laws and policy.
• There are ten broad questions and responses to each question are limited to 500 words. Not all the questions have to be answered.

• Why this matters

• • The Special Rapporteur has a significant role to play within the UN human rights system with an independent roving remit to identify human rights issues. The role is to speak up for people affected by human rights abuses and to push forward on human rights issues within the UN.

• • Previous special rapporteurs helped to establish that drugs harm reduction is justified under the Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. From the early 2000s, human rights organisations, including Human Rights Watch and Harm Reduction International, campaigned to establish that harm reduction was a fundamental aspect of the right to health. They worked with the UN Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Health. In 2008, the then Special Rapporteur, Paul Hunt, set out the principles of Human Rights, Health and Harm Reduction. His successor, Anand Grover, set out the principles for a health-based approach to drug control in a report to the UN General Assembly in August 2010.

• The current Special Rapporteur

• • Tlaleng Mofokeng has a background in universal health access, equality, sexual health and HIV/AIDS. There are obvious reads across to tobacco harm reduction. However she is probably unaware of the human rights issues regarding THR and access to SNP. But there many similarities with drugs, HIV/AIDS, and sexual health harm reduction where it is crucial that people are equipped and enabled to protect themselves.

• Making the case that THR is a right to health issue

• • The principle of the right to health is included in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights . Article 12 enshrines the right of everyone to “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health”. The Covenant says that States Parties (the countries that have signed up to it) must take steps regarding “the prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other diseases”. Article 15 paragraph 1(b) of the Covenant also states that everyone has the right “to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress”. The pursuit of the highest standard of health and protecting public health also includes enabling people to protect themselves.

• • For people who like nicotine, this would include the freedom to choose safer alternatives to combustible cigarettes or risky oral tobacco products. Our GSTHR Briefing Paper on the Right to Health and the Right to Tobacco Harm Reduction https://gsthr.org/resources/briefing-papers/the-right-to-health-and-the-right-to-tobacco-harm-reduction/ is available in 13 languages.

• What to do - responding to the questions

• • It would be good if those involved in THR could respond to the questions. As I've indicated, smoking is not explicitly part of this, so it is a matter of making the case that tobacco harm reduction is underpinned by the right to health and is important in addressing health inequity.

• • Your answers to the questions do not need to be technical. You might make the case that your lives have been changed by having access to safer nicotine products. Personal testimony is important.

• • So, we are still at the early stage of alerting the Special Rapporteur to an issue with which she may be unfamiliar. If you tweet about health rights and THR, Tlaleng Mofokeng is @drtlaleng.

• Next steps

• If you want to respond, the questions are here.
  • You can submit narrative responses that address the questions.
  • Deadline: contributions by email by 27 May 2024.
  • Email address: hrc-sr-health@un.org
  • Email subject line: Contribution to GA report - SR right to health
  • Word/Page limit: 500 words per question
  • Accepted file formats: Word
  • Accepted Languages: English, French, Spanish

THR X (Twitter) Community Notes

A great way for the informed consumer to share information and to call out the issues with tweets seen regularly. Hints, tips, and links for information, such as how to join on Twitter, etc. can be found on the THR X Community notes information and how to page

Region: England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, UK

UK Vape TAX - Make sure to respond by the 29th May 2024 deadline

NNA Call to action and information page

• A guide on responding to the government consultation on its vape tax proposals

LONDON, March 6, 2024: The Chancellor has today approved a tax on vaping liquids which is ill-thought-out and will cost thousands of lives.

• The tax on vaping liquids is damaging in principle and in practice.
• The UK government will undo its former position as a world-leader in reducing the prevalence of smoking.
• Government is now fighting itself by taxing the very products it is urging smokers to try.
• The government is clearly regulating from a position of ignorance and must urgently consult with consumer and public health experts.

The New Nicotine Alliance (NNA) is exasperated that the government is systematically dismantling world-leading policy which was an example to the rest of the world on how to utilise innovative harm reduction approaches to rapidly reduce the toll of smoking-related disease.

Following the ill-judged decision to ignore public health experts who warned of a ban on single-use vapes deterring people who smoke from switching to products that could save their lives, it has now undermined its own admirable Swap to Stop campaign by vowing to increase the tax on the very products it is urging smokers to try. Furthermore, the design of the tax shows that government ministers have no understanding of how the devices help to reduce smoking prevalence.

The government is now fighting itself. It has been recently reported that 400,000 vaping products—the first of one million promised by the government last year—will be handed out free of charge under the Swap to Stop campaign, while the Chancellor is taxing them on the pretext that they are harmful.

NNA Chair Louise Ross, an expert on smoking cessation for nearly two decades, comments, “Putting a higher tax on stronger e-liquids completely misses the point that the more heavily dependent smokers will need stronger liquid to stay smoke-free. This will include people with poor mental health, people on benefits, people living in disadvantaged communities and those with challenging lives. Higher taxes will keep them smoking.

— New Nicotine Alliance, News email, https://mailchi.mp/nnalliance/media-release-a-tax-on-vaping-liquids see also https://nnalliance.org/blog/395-the-chancellors-vape-tax-is-wrong-in-principle-and-childlike-in-application

For information on how to respond please follow the advice of your local advocacy organisation, or the NNA email above.

• Please see this news item for information on how to respond: Tobacco Harm Reduction News: UK Vaping tax and how to respond
• You can learn more about taxing vapor products here.

Region: Europe

EU

Sign the petition

• #EveryLifeCounts
• "At the end of this year we will submit the petition to the EU Parliament’s PETI committee."

Region: North America

Canada

Stop the Flavor Ban

United States

CASAA

• The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association issues calls to action at the federal, state, and local levels.(Note: there are several at the time of this entry, March 11, 2024)

VTA

• The Vapor Technology Association has set up an action center that covers issues around the US.

Region: Central and South America

Argentina - Sign the Petition

Carta abierta al Presidente de la Nación Argentina (Open letter to the President of the Argentine Nation)