The World Health Organization Has Failed the World on Tobacco Harm Reduction

By Christina Smith

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) hosted an educational webinar, “20 Years Later, WHO’s Tobacco Control Framework Draws Criticism, Not Celebration”, on April 28. As the World Health Organization (WHO) marks the 20th anniversary of its Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the panelists focused on the WHO’s failures, areas for improvement, and reform of its approach to tobacco. 

The discussion started with TPA Fellow Martin Cullip and David Williams, President of TPA, introducing subject-matter experts Roger Bate and Clive Bates to discuss how the WHO has not been living up to its ultimate mission of protecting public health. Williams, shared a personal story which explained why the TPA is concerned with the lack of transparency and expenditures of funds within the WHO, along with its rejection of tobacco harm reduction (THR). David said his father, who was an avid smoker, “smoked 3.5 packs of cigarettes a day for 25 years, and he did this while I was a child.” David shared memories from his childhood and how his family would have profoundly benefited from the technological advancements that have brought us THR products we use today, which are less dangerous alternatives to smoking. Unfortunately for David and his family, these innovative products were not developed when he was growing up. There was no mainstream alternative for people addicted to cigarettes in the 1970s. Today, there is, and the WHO does not recognize their life-saving benefits, which is intellectually dishonest and a disservice to all. 

Not only is there a human cost to ignoring the benefits of THR products, but there is also an economic one. David stated, “The WHO is a taxpayer-funded organization, and when you look at the U.S. role in this and the funding of it, over a 2-year period, it is over 1 billion dollars in taxpayer funding in the United States.” This is why TPA’s global campaign, Good COP/Bad COP, was launched to coincide with the WHO FCTC tenth Conference of the Parties (COP10) meeting in Panama in 2024. A follow-up event is planned for 2025 in Geneva to hold the WHO accountable. “We’re building a coalition of doctors, consumers, and advocates who want the WHO to work for the people, not against them,” he said. The WHO is ignoring the science on THR products, and millions of people across the world suffer due to this negligence. 

Clive Bates, explains, “Instead, the WHO has been promoting bad policies, notably prohibition … and celebrate if they can get a prohibition of vapes or heated tobacco products in any country, particularly low or middle income countries, without realizing that is a really bad policy. They haven’t understood the nature of tradeoffs or unintended consequences; that if you ban something, you get more of the unsafe thing. You get illicit trade.” 

“The FCTC should have marked a turning point in global tobacco control,” said Clive Bates, former director of Action on Smoking and Health (UK). “Instead, the WHO remains entrenched in outdated, prohibition-style thinking. They actively oppose safer alternatives like vaping, heated tobacco products, and nicotine pouches—tools that are demonstrably helping people quit smoking.”

Clive makes a great point. Due to prohibition and anti-THR legislation, the black market for THR products is lucrative and growing. Limiting access to regulated products opens the floodgates to illicit and dangerous options that put consumers at risk. That is precisely what the WHO does when recommending prohibition from consumers. The government banning products doesn’t alter demand; it merely shifts the supply chain to the illegal black market, creating an environment for bad actors to flourish and putting consumers in danger. 

Roger Bate, a global health policy expert at the International Center for Law and Economics, went further in questioning the institution’s credibility. “Whether it’s COVID-19 or tobacco policy, the WHO has failed repeatedly,” he said. “We need fundamental reform. If the organization cannot evolve to incorporate modern science and real-world solutions, then it risks becoming obsolete.” 

Roger Bate perfectly sums up the WHO and its mission to eradicate THR products. The WHO’s unwillingness to recognize the benefits of THR products should be viewed as an epic failure on the global health scale. Prohibition doesn’t work and only encourages consumers to shift to the unregulated and dangerous black market.

As the moderator of the webinar, Martin Cullip remarked that the 20th Anniversary of the FCTC treaty is not a cause of celebration until the Secretariat ups its game and modernizes its approach. 

This was the first of multiple webinars leading up to Good COP 2.0 in Geneva in November entitled “Countdown to COP11.” TPA looks forward to more expert commentary on this important subject with further events planned for coming months.