It is a fact of distressing sadness which has nevertheless lasted too long. Used to decide between four walls and totally isolated from realities, theWHO (World Health Organization) still don't want to hear about vaping as a solution to smoking. As a result, tobacco consumption is on the rise in the United States, even worse, without a rapid reaction, the WHO risks 200 million lives that could be saved.
200 MILLION PEOPLE COULD SWITCH TO VAPING!
This is a crazy figure which nevertheless points to the failure of an institution supposed to protect the world population. At a time of a pandemic that affects the whole world, the issue of smoking still remains unresolved even though the alternative with risk reduction exists: Vaping.
However, last month two Conferences of the Parties (COP) took place - both with the ultimate goal of saving lives. But the contrast couldn't be more stark. While COP 26 involved all stakeholders and emphasized transparency to address the challenges of climate change, COP 9 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which is supposed to the fight against smoking, again took place behind closed doors, to the exclusion of any dissenting opinion.
This is a major problem, as the recommendations of the FCTC COP affect millions of people. If they would listen to science and the voices of countless consumers, 200 million lives could be saved. This opaque decision-making and the general animosity of organizations like the WHO against vaping is already having negative consequences in real life.
SMOKING IS RETURNING IN FORCE, WHO WANTS TO KNOW NOTHING!
As indicated Amanda wheeler, professor of mental health, smoking is on the rise for the first time in decades in the United States. The main reason for this is that the country has moved from an open approach towards vaping to an increasingly hostile one.
WHO has an even greater influence in low- and middle-income countries. Therefore, its anti-vaping recommendations will have an even greater negative effect in these countries.
If the WHO is to be successful in combating smoking, its alternatives must be attractive to smokers. Veronique Trillet-Lenoir, Member of the European Parliament (MEP), responsible for the European plan for " Beat cancer“, Recently underlined: « We try to make coincide the interest of the reduction of the risk with the eradication of the risk which is sometimes utopian. Reducing risk is more pragmatic« .
Vaping is the most effective way to quit smoking for good - science proves it, and the millions of people who have quit smoking this way. But for this method to be successful, vaping must be affordable and easily accessible, people must be sufficiently informed about its benefits, and have a variety of aromas that do not remind them of the taste of cigarettes. If any of these rights are restricted, many people will return to smoking and stop the progress already made.
It is incomprehensible that the WHO continues on a hostile path to vaping and risks reversing the huge progress we have seen in recent decades through less harmful alternatives.
