The World Health Organization Misses the Mark on Tobacco Harm Reduction 

The upcoming Eleventh Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP11) to the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is taking place in Geneva, Switzerland from November 17-22, 2025, and smokers aren’t holding their breath for global bureaucrats to ditch their fear-based rhetoric regarding tobacco harm reduction (THR). As the WHO pushes for stringent bans and restrictions that overlook the proven benefits of THR to the detriment of millions of consumers, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) will simultaneously be hosting the Conference of the People (COP), aka “Good COP 2.0” to counter the WHO’s “Bad COP.”  Good COP 2.0 will also take place in Geneva, Switzerland and will include 37 experts from 22 different countries. Unlike COP 11, TPA’s Good COP 2.0 welcomes a wide array of viewpoints and will be livestreamed on TPA’s YouTube page for those who want to attend virtually and participate in the conference.

TPA has long supported adult access to THR products like e-cigarettes, heated tobacco, nicotine pouches, and smokeless products. THR strategies improve health outcomes for adult smokers and have proven to be effective tools in helping millions of adults quit smoking. If improving public health is the objective, then THR strategies must be prioritized, not shunned.

The WHO misses the mark on THR and instead focuses on tobacco prohibition through restrictions and bans. This reckless subagency of the United Nations pays a bit of lip service to reduced-risk products and “recognizes” that tobacco control should include tobacco harm reduction. However, the upcoming COP11 agenda completely overlooks this approach, undermining worldwide efforts to minimize health risks associated with traditional tobacco use. In its ill-advised embrace of prohibition, the WHO is completely missing the mark on the opportunity to implement evidence-based harm reduction measures that would save lives.

Article 1(d) of the WHO FCTC preamble explicitly states that harm reduction is one of the pillars of tobacco control. This means the treaty itself acknowledges harm reduction as a valid strategy. Yet, a draft decision, titled “Forward-looking tobacco control measures,” has been proposed for COP11 under Article 2.1. This new language does not include harm reduction and instead offers a rigid framework that fails to acknowledge THR strategies. The COP11 agenda further attempts to portray harm reduction as an industry narrative, rather than a widely understood tool for improving public health in a multitude of policy areas. Implementing restrictive measures that undermine THR will lead to negative public health outcomes by discouraging the adoption of less harmful alternatives to smoking.

Even using WHO’s statistical estimates of the number of smoking-attributed deaths, the agency’s prohibitionist claims do not withstand close scrutiny. If all current smokers switched to a hypothetical smoke-free product that is 80 percent less risky than smoking, the WHO’s own methods demonstrate a ten-fold reduction in smoking-attributable deaths compared with historical tobacco control measures on their own. 

It is time for the WHO to implement THR strategies that have been proven to improve health outcomes across the world in Sweden, New Zealand, the U.K. and other nations. Prohibition only succeeds in putting consumers at risk.