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Letter to Minister Costello and COP10 Delegates

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Dear Minister Costello and COP10 Delegates, In a few days, the World Health Organisation is hosting its Tenth Session of the Conference of Parties (“COP10”) to the “Framework and Convention on Tobacco Control”.  I am writing to ask that New Zealand’s delegates take an evidence-based approach to your advocacy for tobacco harm reduction at COP10.  New Zealand is a world leader in getting smokers to quit. It’s done this by shifting smokers to less harmful products like vaping.  Supporting (or accepting) WHO proposed rules to restrict reduced-harm alternatives would be a step backwards. Ironically, these proposals would play into the hands of “Big Tobacco” and are totally counter to New Zealand’s Smokefree 2025 aspiration! Australia – and its much higher smoking rates – show the danger of tightly regulating things like vaping.  Aussie smoking rates are now nearly double that of New Zealand.  Australia has shown that restricting alternative nicotine products keeps people dependant on traditional cigarettes – which, according to Public Health England, are twenty times more harmful than vaping.  The only reason the New Zealand Government would go along with the WHO’s proposals is to keep more people smoking and collect more tax. That is morally wrong. I’m asking you to say NO to the World Health Organisation forcing New Zealand to take the Australian-style failed approach.  I ask that your delegates at COP10: - Promote New Zealand’s success story of reducing smoking rates by following evidence-based policies that allow consumers to choose reduced harm alternatives like vaping. - Oppose and push-back against the attempts to introduce measures that would make it more difficult for smokers to access reduced-harm alternatives, such as vaping and snus, to quit. - Support evidence-based regulation by putting forward a draft decision to the COP to establish a working group to look at the evidence of differentiated regulations for smoking, vaping and other nicotine alternatives. It is clear that the WHO approach to push for much stronger regulations on vaping would make it much more difficult for people to access these products as a tool for quitting. That is totally counter to what is suggested by experts (including anti-smoking charities such as ASH) and what has worked in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.  There is clear evidence that vaping is an effective smoking cessation tool that is significantly less harmful than smoking.  It is unhelpful from a policymaking standpoint to have an organisation like the WHO advocating for different regulations and claiming the evidence is different to that promoted by health experts. Establishing a WHO working group at COP10 to look at the evidence surrounding vaping regulations, the impact these regulations have on the ability for people to quit smoking, and the evidence on differentiated regulations for smoking and reduced-harm products would help to ensure that regulations are appropriate. Getting regulation wrong can have significant social, economic and health costs for smokers themselves along with the taxpayer and wider society. Making it more difficult to quit smoking through reduced-harm alternatives will mean more people continue to smoke. This risks further empowering and enriching organised criminals who can supply unregulated tobacco cheaply on the black market and do not ask for ID. Already in New Zealand, one in eight cigarettes smoked comes from the black market. In Australia, where there are even stricter restrictions, that figure is one in four. Wealthier gangs will increase criminal activity, not only punishing law-abiding taxpayers with increased costs for police and the courts, but also those victims of crime who are simply trying to make an honest living. Taxpayers will also face the health-related costs of any smoked-tobacco purchased tax-free on the black market.  The latest evidence from Cochrane (who the Ministry of Health considers the “gold standard for determining the relative effectiveness of different interventions”) stated that “there was high certainty that quit rates were higher in people randomized to nicotine Electronic Cigarettes than in those randomized to nicotine replacement therapy”. We cannot risk unwinding New Zealand’s smoking success story by supporting, or remaining silent to, calls for further restrictions of the single most effective smoking cessation tool we have without evidence that the benefits of such restrictions will outweigh the costs. I hope New Zealand’s delegates will stand up for what is right at COP10, and not allow us to be bullied into regulations that we know will cost lives. Kind regards,

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