The World Health Organization (WHO) will meet for the seventh Conference of the Parties (COP VII) next November 7-12 in New Delhi, India. The Conference aims to monitor the implementation status of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and above all to promote regulatory and fiscal actions aimed at reducing tobacco consumption. But meanwhile one country has already moved forward, and that is Sweden.
I documents released last week by WHO demonstrate in fact that one of the objectives on the agenda in New Delhi will be to limit access to the new technologies that have allowed millions of people to give up smoking by choosing “alternative cigarettes”, from electronic products to heated tobacco products. According to the WHO the "end game" of smoking will be reached in countries where the smoking rate will reach a number of less than 5% of the total population. A goal still far away for many, if we consider that globally the number of smokers continues to grow despite the increasingly restrictive measures adopted, but not for Stockholm.
Se in Italy, according to the latest data from the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, there are 11,5 million smokers, more than 20% of the population, according to Swedish government data, in 2015, only 6% of young Swedes smoked. The explanation for this exception is that 25% of Swedes use it “snus”, a pouch of chewing tobacco that releases nicotine. Thanks to snus, not only is Sweden on the way to becoming the first country to achieve a male smoking rate below 5%, but it is the country with the lowest rate of lung cancer among men in Europe (the percentage is higher among Swedish women, because they don't use snus much), as well as having a low rate of other smoking-related diseases such as heart disease.
A spectacular case of harm reduction, once again underestimated by the WHO which indeed, through a study carried out in 1985, on the basis of which it was concluded that "the use of oral tobacco of the types used in North America and Western Europe is carcinogenic to humans,” prompted the European Union to ban the sale of snus in 1992. The only European country where the sale is lawful is Sweden (in addition to Norway, which however is not part of the EU), with results there for all to see: after all, another WHO committee then recognized the lack of obvious consequences for health in snus consumers.
Taking a cue from the Swedish experience, the WHO could therefore review its policies towards alternatives to traditional cigarettes and new generation tobacco products, from e-cigs, to heated tobacco products to snus itself, which are now too restrictive and which do not take into account the potential harm reduction achievable with these products. A change of position also loudly requested by many international organizations that deal with health and authoritative exponents of the scientific community both internationally and nationally who have asked WHO to review its position in view of the next conference in New Delhi.
Over all world-renowned oncologist Umberto Veronesi, a member of the International Scientific Committee on Electronic Cigarettes, who recently urged the United Nations organization "not to take positions against the electronic cigarette on the basis of possible unscientifically documented risks".
A position adopted also by the Italian Anti-Smoking League (LIAF), which in fact was refused the application to participate in the New Delhi conference like 11 other international NGOs and many journalists, excluded as happened in the last conferences in Russia and Turkmenistan. A violation of the right to information which led 50 journalists and editors to write an "Open Letter to the United Nations against the gagging of the media and the stifling of press freedom" to challenge the extraordinary measures often taken by the Organization to prevent journalists from doing their job.
