New TPA Report Exposes WHO’s Double Standards on Harm Reduction in Asia-Pacific

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Kara Zupkus (224)-456-0257

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) today released a new policy brief, “Harm Reduction Denied in Asia Pacific” by Nancy Loucas, executive coordinator for the Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA). The brief accuses the World Health Organization (WHO) of hypocrisy for endorsing harm reduction in areas such as HIV, drugs, and alcohol while actively denying the same life-saving approach for tobacco and nicotine. The result, Loucas says, has been a catastrophic policy failure across the Southeast Asia (SEARO) and Western Pacific (WPRO) regions, home to more than 60 percent of the world’s tobacco users.

The report highlights how the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and its network of aligned NGOs have misrepresented nicotine science, excluded consumers from decision-making, and rewarded countries with state-owned tobacco industries for banning safer alternatives such as vapes, heated tobacco, and nicotine pouches. As a result, most countries in the region are set to miss the global target of reducing tobacco use by 30 percent by 2025.

“WHO’s current approach amounts to a policy of quit or die,” Loucas states. “By denying smokers access to safer options, the organisation is choosing ideology over evidence.”

In contrast, countries that have embraced proportionate regulation of novel nicotine products, including Japan, the Philippines, and New Zealand, have seen smoking rates plummet faster than through traditional tobacco control policies alone. The report argues these examples prove that properly regulated access to harm reduction products accelerates public health progress and protects consumers from unsafe or illicit tobacco.

The paper also warns that the WHO’s prohibitionist agenda is disproportionately harming low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), which have the most to gain from safer nicotine innovation. With 781 million tobacco users in the Asia-Pacific region, restrictive WHO-backed policies are driving people towards dangerous black markets and preserving the profits of state-owned cigarette monopolies.

“The WHO’s stance on tobacco harm reduction is not just inconsistent, it’s unethical,” said Loucas. “By ignoring science and excluding the voices of people most affected, it is betraying the very mission of public health.”

The report calls for immediate reform, urging governments to adopt evidence-based regulation, include consumer perspectives in policy development, and move beyond moralistic opposition to nicotine. “It’s time to replace prohibition with pragmatism,” Loucas states, “lives depend on it.”

In response to the brief, TPA fellow Martin Cullip called for WHO reform: “More than 80 percent of the world’s smokers live in low- and middle-income countries. This report shines a light on the hypocrisy at the heart of global tobacco policy. It’s time for evidence and compassion to replace ideology, so millions of smokers in Asia and beyond can access safer alternatives.”

Loucas will present her report at the TPA’s Good COP 2.0 conference in Geneva, Switzerland, which will run from November 17^th to 21^st. The event will feature 37 policy experts from 22 different countries to offer a counterpoint to the WHO FCTC Eleventh Conference of the Parties (COP11) and its refusal to accept the public health benefits of tobacco harm reduction.