Date: 06/19/2025
Source: Framework Convention on Tobacco Control – COP Process (2006–2025)
The Essentials
Study/Policy focus: Analysis of COP decisions under the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) from 2006–2024, highlighting how harm reduction was progressively excluded.
Main finding: Over successive COPs, language shifted from cautious exploration (COP4, 2010) to explicit rejection of reduced-risk products (COP7–COP10), treating them as equivalent to cigarettes.
Economic/policy outcome: This stance has hindered the implementation of regulated harm-reduction strategies, despite empirical evidence of their effectiveness in countries such as the UK, Sweden, Japan, and New Zealand.
Impact evaluation: By refusing to differentiate risk, the FCTC’s approach may inadvertently perpetuate smoking prevalence, sustaining the economic and health costs of combustion.
Equity & human rights: The exclusion of lower-risk alternatives disproportionately harms vulnerable populations unable to quit through abstinence alone, raising ethical concerns about autonomy and the right to health.
Why It Matters
The FCTC’s defensive posture, designed to shield policymaking from tobacco industry interference, has hardened into a doctrine that excludes not only corporate influence but also scientific complexity, independent voices, and pragmatic policy innovation.
This orthodoxy has turned “precaution” into “denial,” and now into “silencing,” leaving millions of smokers without access to less harmful options. When regulatory language collapses nuance into prohibition, public health risks become faith-driven rather than evidence-driven. And the human cost is measured in the persistence of combustion — the leading preventable cause of death worldwide.
What Changes in Practice
Health/Regulation – Without risk differentiation, regulations treat all nicotine products as equally harmful, closing the door on integrated cessation and harm-reduction strategies.
Industry/Innovation – By conflating “industry” with “innovation,” the COP discourages independent research and development, regulatory oversight, and the development of safer technologies.
Society/Environment – Excluding consumer voices silences those most affected: people who continue smoking. Public debate narrows, while illicit markets and unregulated products expand.
Scenarios and Next Steps
Short term (1–2 years): COP11 (Geneva, Nov 2025) likely to reaffirm prohibitionist language. Advocacy efforts may push for transparency, observer access, and debate on harm reduction.
Medium-term (3–5 years): Some member states may diverge — integrating vaping, Heat-not-burn products, or snus/pouches into national cessation strategies despite FCTC guidance, potentially creating policy fractures.
Long term (5–10 years): Unless recalibrated, the COP risks irrelevance: countries could bypass its framework, leaving the Convention stranded in doctrinal isolation while science and practice evolve.
The Takeaway
By refusing to hear, the COP defends orthodoxy but abandons smokers — and silence keeps combustion alive.
For Further Reading
Read the full analysis here → claudioteixeira.substack.com/p/fctc-silencing