Tag: Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates

Consumer Groups Demand Seats at COP11

Photo: v-a-butenkov
The Coalition of Asia Pacific Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA) is calling on the World Health Organization to open the upcoming Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Conference of the Parties (COP11) to consumer advocacy groups, in line with human rights principles and evidence-based policymaking.
“The WHO FCTC process must adopt a human rights approach that considers the implications across the entire life cycle of tobacco products, from growing to consumption,” said Nancy Loucas, executive coordinator of the CAPHRA. “This requires meaningful engagement of all stakeholders, including consumers, to strengthen policy formulation and implementation.”
The CAPHRA points to a WHO Western Pacific Regional Office’s report highlighting that “a key element to creating a successful tobacco control social movement is the meaningful engagement and involvement of civil society.” The report notes civil society’s crucial role in “initiating, leading and sustaining tobacco control efforts to improve public health.”
“Consumer groups are not constrained by bureaucracy and can hold both industry and government accountable,” Loucas added. “Our exclusion from COP11 flies in the face of the WHO’s stated principles on civil society engagement.”
The CAPHRA is urging the FCTC Secretariat to formally invite consumer advocacy groups as observers to COP11, to create dedicated sessions for civil society input during COP11 proceedings and to establish an ongoing mechanism for consumer group consultation between COPs.
The organization emphasizes that evidence clearly shows tobacco harm reduction strategies like vaping have helped millions quit smoking. Consumer voices are critical to ensure policies reflect real-world impacts.
“The WHO cannot claim to take a human rights approach while silencing the very people their policies affect,” said Loucas. “It’s time to practice what they preach on civil society engagement and let consumers into COP11.”
October 29, 2024
CAPHRA Activists Celebrate Slowing Smoking Rates

Photo: sezerozger
New Zealand has achieved its Smokefree 2025 goal ahead of schedule, with smoking rates plummeting to unprecedented lows, according to the Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA).
Data from the most recent New Zealand Health Survey reveals that smoking rates have fallen dramatically, particularly among youth. The decline has been so significant that statisticians now struggle to accurately measure the small proportion of young smokers due to sample size limitations, says CAPHRA, which attributes the success to New Zealand’s accommodation of new nicotine products as tools to helps nicotine users transition away from cigarettes.
“New Zealand’s success in reducing smoking rates is a testament to the country’s progressive approach to tobacco harm reduction,” said Nancy Loucas, executive coordinator of CAPHRA. “By embracing vaping and other less harmful alternatives, we’ve seen smoking rates drop from 11.9 percent in 2020 to an astounding 6.8 percent in 2023. This is a clear indication that our strategy is working.”

Our success story should be a wake-up call for countries like Australia who are still clinging to prohibitionist policies.
Nancy Loucas, executive coordinator, CAPHRA
The success is particularly notable among young people, with youth smoking rates reaching historic lows. “The fact that we’re having difficulty measuring youth smoking rates due to their minuscule prevalence is a cause for celebration,” Loucas added. “It’s a clear sign that we’re winning the battle against smoking-related harm.”
Despite this undeniable success, some in the tobacco control and public health sectors seem reluctant to acknowledge the effectiveness of New Zealand’s approach, according to CAPHRA.
“It’s perplexing that some individuals in tobacco control can’t seem to accept our successful strategy,” said Loucas. “We’ve achieved what many thought impossible, yet instead of celebrating, they’re focusing on potential issues with vaping. We need to recognize this victory and continue supporting policies that have proven effective in reducing smoking rates.”
CAPHRA urges policymakers and health advocates worldwide to look to New Zealand as a model for successful tobacco harm reduction. The organization emphasizes the importance of embracing evidence-based approaches that include a range of less harmful alternatives to smoking.
“Our success story should be a wake-up call for countries like Australia who are still clinging to prohibitionist policies,” said Loucas. “It’s time to put aside preconceived notions and focus on what works – a pragmatic, harm-reduction approach that prioritizes public health over ideology.”
October 14, 2024
New Zealand Urged to Rethink Closed-System Ban

Photo: Evgeniy Vershinin
The Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA) is urging New Zealand to reconsider its proposed vaping regulations, which include a ban on closed systems, tighter limits on displays in retail shops and new flavor restrictions.
“This amendment will make it more difficult for adults who smoke to access vaping products, potentially pushing them back to smoking,” said CAPHRA Executive Coordinator Nancy Loucas. “It’s a step backwards in our journey towards a smoke-free New Zealand.
The CAPHRA submission highlights several concerns. According to the advocacy group, the ban disproportionately affects older adults and those with dexterity issues who rely on simpler closed systems. The proposed display restrictions, says CAPHRA, may deter smokers from switching to less harmful alternatives. Meanwhile, the focus on further display restrictions in retail shops ignores the real issue of social supply to youth, according to the organization, while flavor restrictions could hinder successful smoking cessation efforts.
“Consumers have the right to make informed choices about their health. This amendment proposes to restrict consumer autonomy and may hinder harm reduction efforts,” said Loucas.
“Even the Ministry of Health suggested that the regulations, as they are, are fit for purpose and the ASH Year 10 survey has shown that youth vaping has declined from the peak a couple of years ago.
“CAPHRA calls for a more balanced approach, focusing on education and transparent risk communication. By highlighting the facts about vaping, who it is for, and what it is, we can combat misinformation and support public health,” said Loucas.
September 16, 2024
Activists Criticize Exclusionary Tactics at COP10

Photo: Alexey Novikov
The Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA) today issued a sharp critique of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) for its exclusion of consumer groups and harm reduction advocates from the 10th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP10).
“CAPHRA argues that this exclusionary practice is in stark contrast to the successful, pragmatic approaches of countries like New Zealand, the Philippines and Malaysia, which have embraced vaping as a harm reduction tool,” said Nancy Loucas, a public health policy expert and passionate advocate for tobacco harm reduction and executive coordinator of CAPHRA.
The press release condemns the COP10 meetings for silencing the voices of those who advocate for harm reduction strategies, such as vaping, which have been shown to significantly reduce smoking prevalence in countries where they are available and regulated.
CAPHRA points out that the prohibitionist approach of countries like Australia, which recently banned vaping products, is not in the best interest of public health.
“CAPHRA calls on FCTC officials to open their minds to harm reduction and to consider the evidence from countries like New Zealand, where smoking rates have decreased due to the availability of regulated vaping products,” said Loucas.
The organization stresses the importance of including consumer groups in the decisionmaking process, as they provide essential insights into the needs of smokers and how alternative products can be used effectively.
January 25, 2024
New Zealand Urged to Reject Australia’s Regulatory Model

Photo: REDMASON/indysystem
The Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA) is calling on the New Zealand government to reject Australia’s approach to vaping and continue to follow the science and evidence.
CAPHRA has submitted comments on New Zealand’s proposals for the smoked tobacco regulatory regime, which include tightening current restrictions on vaping product safety requirements and packaging and reducing nicotine levels in disposable vapes as well as restricting the location of specialist vape retailers.
“CAPHRA believes that the regulations, as they are, work perfectly well, and that further restrictions will only serve to limit access to safer nicotine products for adult smokers seeking less harmful alternatives to combustible tobacco,” says CAPHRA executive coordinator and prominent New Zealand public health consumer advocate Nancy Loucas.
“The announcement that New Zealand would not follow Australia’s lead to a full prescription model for nicotine vaping further reinforces the need for a harm reduction approach that is based on science and evidence, not scaremongering by crowing Australians.”

CAPHRA believes that the regulations, as they are, work perfectly well, and that further restrictions will only serve to limit access to safer nicotine products for adult smokers seeking less harmful alternatives to combustible tobacco.
Nancy Loucas, executive coordinator, CAPHRA
In a press note announcing its submission to New Zealand’s proposals, CAPHRA cites an article in The Critic, “The Vape Scare Down Under,” which describes the Australian government’s approach to vaping is misguided and based on fear rather than evidence. The article argues that the government’s proposed ban on flavored e-cigarettes is not supported by the evidence and will only serve to drive vapers back to smoking. The article also highlights the success of vaping in reducing smoking rates in countries like the U.K. and New Zealand.
“Unfortunately, the vaping debate has become highly political instead of being about the science or the evidence which continues to show that vaping is reducing smoking rates around the world,” says Loucas.
CAPHRA continues to urge the New Zealand government to take a risk-proportionate approach to regulations that protect public health while ensuring the availability of these products for adult smokers seeking less harmful alternatives to combustible tobacco.
“New Zealand should not follow Australia’s policy on vaping, and instead continue to follow a harm reduction approach that is based on science and evidence. Harm reduction should be the driving force behind tobacco policy, and regulations should be risk-proportionate and protect public health while ensuring the availability of these products for adult smokers seeking less harmful alternatives to combustible tobacco,” Loucas said.
June 29, 2023
COP Delegations Urged to Include Consumer Input

Photo: Oleg
Country delegations to the 10th Conference of the Parties (COP10) to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) should include at least one consumer of safer nicotine products, according to the Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA).
In a letter to their respective countries’ FCTC delegations, CAPHRA member organizations stressed the importance of listening to consumers. “Consumers are an untapped experience and knowledgebase who are not represented inclusively in the FCTC process,” the letter states. “Delegates to COP10 should be representing the rights and aspirations of the citizens.”
CAPHRA insists that adults have the right to make choices that help them avoid adverse health outcomes and people who smoke have the right to access less harmful nicotine products as alternatives to combustible and unsafe tobacco. What’s more, they have the right to participate in the policy making process that directly impacts their right to health and wellbeing, the letter notes.
CAPHRA Executive Director Nancy Loucas said that exclusion of consumer voices has contributed to misinformation, disinformation and failures of tobacco control policy.
“Millions have successfully used vaping to move away from combustibles and unsafe oral nicotine products, yet the FCTC looks set to bury its head in the sand again at COP10. CAPHRA believes visiting delegations must include a consumer voice to give at least some balance to all the misinformation,” says Loucas.
COP10 will be held in Panama in November.
March 20, 2023
CAPHRA Condemns Anti-Vaping Campaign
“By stirring up anti-vaping hysteria, New Zealand’s Asthma and Respiratory Foundation will only send more minors back to smoking and put the country’s decade long Smokefree 2025 ambition in jeopardy,” says Nancy Loucas, executive coordinator of the Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA).
Loucas’ comments follow the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation (ARFNZ) launching a video series titled, “Spotlight on Vaping.” The campaign claims New Zealand is experiencing an “epidemic” of youth vaping. Together with the Secondary Principals’ Association of NZ (SPANZ), it also claims over a quarter of students have vaped in the past week.
“What these sensationalized numbers don’t take into account is, if 26 percent of school students had in fact vaped in the past week, many would only be trying it, and secondly, almost all of them would’ve been smoking deadly cigarettes a generation ago,” says Loucas.
CAPHRA says while smoking-related illnesses kill around 5,000 New Zealanders every year, vaping has not reportedly caused one death in the country. In fact, vaping been widely attributed for positively contributing to New Zealand’s plummeting smoking rate. The overall adult daily smoking rate has fallen from 18 percent in 2006/07 to 9.4 percent in 2020-2021.
“What ARFNZ fails to mention is [that] the 2021 ASH Year 10 Snapshot survey that they selectively refer to confirms that vaping is not hooking nonsmokers. In that survey, just 3 percent of those who vape daily have never smoked. What’s more, while many may try it, very few ever become regular vapers, particularly non-smoking students,” she says.
Loucas says while ARFNZ attract headlines by alleging a “youth vaping epidemic,” University of Auckland researchers in 2020 came to a different conclusion: “Our findings do not support the notion of a so-called vaping epidemic in New Zealand or a large youth population dependent on vaping,” the researchers wrote
“While no one wants youth vaping, we are not seeing an ‘epidemic’ as ARFNZ would have the public believe.

June 17, 2022
Vape Groups Urge Duterte to Sign Latest Vaping Bill

Credit: Mongkolchon
The Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA) has written to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte asking him to urgently sign the Vaporized Nicotine Products Regulation Act into law.
Both the Philippine Senate and House of Representatives have ratified the harmonized version of the act, which will regulate the use, manufacture, importation, sale, distribution and promotion of vaping and heated tobacco products. It now awaits the President’s signature or veto.
“The weight of the scientific evidence shows that potentially thousands of Filipino lives can be saved by making this act the law of the land,” wrote CAPHRA, backed by its expert advisory group and member organizations throughout the Asia Pacific region.
CAPHRA told Duterte that, when enacted, the legislation will provide 16 million Filipino smokers with the world’s most effective smoking cessation tool, saving the lives and enhancing the health of millions of Filipino smokers and their families, friends, and co-workers.
“Hundreds of peer-reviewed international scientific studies have found innovative smoke-free products such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products to be far less harmful than combustible tobacco and offer the best options to make smokers switch or quit,” wrote Nancy Loucas, executive coordinator of CAPHRA. “The act will ensure the regulation of these products, so that they meet government standards to protect consumers and will contribute revenue, via taxation.”
The letter said signing the act into law and giving Filipino smokers the option of choosing less harmful alternative nicotine products will create an enduring presidential legacy. It will prove to the world that Duterte is a leader who put the health and well-being of his people, based on science, above the special interests of foreigners.
February 28, 2022
Activists Welcome Thailand’s Plan to Legalize Vaping
Asa Saligupta
Tobacco harm reduction advocates have welcomed Thailand’s plans to legalize and regulate vapor products.
“Countries which have chosen to legalize and regulate e-cigarettes have seen a fall in overall smoking rates and have much better control over youth vaping. It’s exciting for Thailand, and in fact the world, that the government is now set to overturn its ban on the sale of vape products,” says Asa Saligupta, director of ENDS Cigarette Smoke Thailand (ECST).
According to Saligupta, Thailand’s harsh ban and penalties on vape sales has meant too many smokers have been stuck with cigarettes, while young people buy e-cigarettes in the underground economy with no control over the purchase age or product safety standards.
“We’ve seen the legalization and regulation of vaping in places like the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand work very well. I’m delighted the Thai government is now listening to the science with the adoption of effective tobacco harm reduction (THR) policies now increasingly imminent,” he says.
The ECST director says Digital Economy and Society Minister Chaiwut Thanakamanusorn, government officials, public health experts and advocates have all been key to finally addressing Thailand’s failed tobacco control policies.
He says that, despite the minister adopting an evidence-based approach, local conservative health groups continue to unfairly target him and publicly scaremonger.
“It was a big breakthrough last year when the minister told local media that vaping is safer for people trying to quit smoking. Since then, he has walked the talk—looking at ways vaping can be legalized. He fully understands it offers smokers a less harmful alternative to deadly cigarettes and protects non-smokers from the dangers of second-hand smoke.
“Consumer groups like ours have worked hard to encourage our politicians and officials to follow the significant international public health evidence. It has been a long journey, but we’re pleased with the progress the government’s working group continues to make on legalizing e-cigarette sales,” says Saligupta.
Nancy Loucas
International research also shows countries which have adopted progressive policies around vaping have seen their smoking rates fall twice as fast as those countries that haven’t.
Nancy Loucas, executive coordinator of The Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Advocates (CAPHRA), says that by lifting its long ban on vape sales, Thailand will join about 70 countries that have legalized vaping.
“Around the world, vaping is saving millions of ex-smokers’ lives and can save many more if safer nicotine products are embraced, not demonized,” says Loucas. “Thailand’s 10 million smokers have long deserved a readily and legally available alternative to cigarettes. The country’s sky-high smoking rate is totally unacceptable but thanks to the work of ECST and others, it’s about to be seriously addressed.”
According to Loucas, Thailand has become increasingly isolated internationally with its harsh policies. Vapers currently risk arrests, sanctions and even imprisonment.
“By legalizing that sale of vapes, Thailand will join countries like the Philippines and Malaysia which are also waking up to the fact that vaping bans inevitably fail, leading to unnecessary smoking-related illnesses and deaths,” says Loucas.
February 14, 2022
Filipino Delegate Praised For Courage, Bravery at COP9

Teodoro Locsin Jr.
(Photo: Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs)
Tobacco harm reduction (THR) advocates and vapers have praised Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. for his insistence at the ninth Conference of the Parties (COP9) that the latest scientific information must be considered to solve the global smoking problem.
“We salute his bravery at COP9 for promoting the Philippines’ balanced and evidence-based approach to safer nicotine products,” said Peter Dator, president of consumer group Vapers PH and Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA) member. “Opponents and officials have since done their best to discredit Secretary Locsin and disrespect our country’s democracy and sovereignty, but they have failed badly.”
“In a world where smoking causes eight million deaths every year, Secretary Locsin has done everyone a huge favor,” said Nancy Loucas, executive coordinator of CAPHRA. “Telling COP9 about the success of ‘far less harmful novel tobacco products’ and the Philippine government’s political support for them was music to the ears of the millions who’ve successful quit deadly cigarettes via vaping.”

We salute his bravery at COP9 for promoting the Philippines’ balanced and evidence-based approach to safer nicotine products.
Peter Dator, president, Vapers PH
Loucas organized a global livestream called sCOPe during COP9, featuring leading THR experts and consumer advocates. The livestream added to the increasing pressure on the WHO to embrace safer nicotine products.
“How can we trust the WHO and the FCTC when they are afraid of science? In this age of fake news and alternative facts, it is important for governments to take a stand for the facts and know how to sift through the propaganda. This is what Secretary Locsin did at COP9, and I join the Philippine Cabinet and Congress in commending his actions,” said Dator.
Earlier, Locsin had drawn fire from the Philippines Department of Health for stating that tobacco products were a “source of good through taxation” for the Philippines
The health department said that it was misleading to praise the tobacco industry’s role in raising tax revenues. In 2011, the cost of tobacco-related diseases was estimated at PHP177 billion ($3.54 billion) annually, the agency noted. This was seven times higher than the PHP25.9 billion collected in taxes from tobacco products.
November 16, 2021