By Providence Ayanfeoluwa

Good COP 2.0 delivered a striking counter-narrative to the prohibition-leaning orthodoxy that has shaped global tobacco control for years.

Despite varying views on nicotine, the discussions revealed something policymakers—particularly those aligned with the WHO’s current posture—can no longer ignore: a widening gap between regulatory ideology, real-world consumer behaviour, and the lived consequences of blanket restrictions.

Speakers argued that global institutions have drifted from the original public-health objective of reducing smoking-related disease and instead adopted an expansive, punitive stance toward nicotine itself. The result, they said, is a predictable policy failure—defined by illicit markets, dysfunctional enforcement, and the silencing of the very populations regulation is intended to protect.

A Global Pattern of Failure

The final day of Good COP 2.0 placed sharp focus on the consequences of prohibitionist tobacco-control policies worldwide.

Speakers highlighted the global rise in illicit trade, gang violence, and punitive enforcement—outcomes driven by WHO-endorsed restrictions such as excessive taxes and pre-market approval systems that ignore scientific evidence and consumer behaviour.

Panellists examined the real-world harms of these fundamentalist approaches, underscored the importance of consumer voices in policymaking, and explored what effective, humane nicotine regulation should look like.

In the U.S. context, for instance, experts argued that meaningful reform would likely require at least a partial repeal of the Tobacco Control Act and a far more restrained regulatory approach from the FDA.

The final session concluded with an open forum where participants reflected on the week’s findings and emphasised the need for urgent reforms within the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

Voices From the Forum

“THR restrictions are tantamount to punishing people for wearing seatbelts. The worst part is that law enforcement is abusing these restrictions to get bribes.” — Rohan Sequeira

“Studies on THR products often fixate on the tiny proportion of youth using nicotine while ignoring the far more important issue of adults using these products to quit smoking.” — Marina Murphy

“There’s no point in passing laws that governments won’t enforce. We need credible enforcement in the U.K. and elsewhere.” — Mark Oates

“Some people will never be convinced by evidence alone. Sometimes you have to change the framing and shift the culture.” — Jacob Grier

Key Issues Highlighted at Good COP 2.0

1. Punitive Nicotine Policies Are Creating More Problems Than They Solve

A consistent theme across all sessions was that heavy-handed control strategies—high taxes, flavour bans, pre-market barriers, and outright prohibitions—have not reduced nicotine use. Instead, they have pushed it underground.

Speakers cited examples from the U.S., U.K., and developing countries to show how illegal markets fill the void created by banned or inaccessible products. Police resources are diverted to low-level offenses, corruption thrives, and adult smokers seeking safer alternatives are criminalised or forced into unregulated markets.

From a policy perspective, this should not be surprising. Prohibition reliably generates black markets—whether the product is alcohol, cannabis, opioids, or nicotine.

A moral inconsistency also emerged: vape shop owners have been jailed for selling flavoured nicotine to adults, while cigarettes—the most lethal consumer product on the planet—remain widely legal.

2. Consumers Are Treated as Subjects, Not Stakeholders

Many speakers said they felt politically excluded from policymaking. Consumers—those who quit smoking through harm-reduction products and those most affected by enforcement—are routinely shut out of WHO FCTC COP sessions and national regulatory discussions.

This exclusion shapes policy outcomes. When only governments, NGOs, and bureaucracies are at the table, regulations reflect institutional ideology, not consumer reality.

Consumer advocates from Thailand, the Philippines, Chile, Croatia, and the U.K. stressed that reforms succeed when users are included and fail when policies are imposed from above.

Regardless of one’s stance on nicotine use, legitimate governance demands transparency, accountability, and inclusive processes—standards many global institutions currently fail.

3. Scientific Stagnation and Mission Creep at the WHO

Critics argued that the WHO and FCTC have drifted from evidence-based practice. Among the major concerns raised:

The FCTC was designed to address smoking, not all nicotine use.

The WHO has expanded its mandate without scientific justification.

External funders and ideological partners influence agenda-setting.

Technical work—such as FCTC Articles 9 and 10—has stagnated.

Speakers suggested these behaviours reflect bureaucratic self-preservation and an aversion to dissenting scientific perspectives.

A core issue remains: the WHO increasingly treats all nicotine products as equally harmful, despite substantial evidence showing that non-combustible alternatives carry far lower risk.

4. Regulatory Reform Is Not Deregulation—It Is Competent Regulation

Harm-reduction advocates clarified that they do not seek a regulatory free-for-all. They want frameworks that are: risk-proportionate, predictable, transparent, technically credible and enforceable

In particular, the U.S. FDA’s premarket tobacco application (PMTA) system was criticised as impossibly slow, expensive, and biased against innovative, lower-risk products.

Where legal access fails, illicit markets thrive—undermining public health rather than improving it.

5. The Essential Insight: Evidence-Based Harm Reduction Works—and People Want It

Harm reduction is not a fringe idea. It is a reality for millions of smokers trying to lower their risk.

Stories shared throughout Good COP 2.0—of arrests, corruption, punitive enforcement, and bureaucratic indifference—highlight a central truth:

When regulation ignores human behaviour, human behaviour will ignore regulation.

When institutions refuse to adapt to evidence, reform becomes inevitable.

Good COP 2.0 did more than critique the WHO and national regulators. It exposed a structural problem in the global governance of nicotine: institutions have grown insulated, inflexible, and disconnected from the people they are meant to protect.

The consequences are now visible—flourishing illicit markets, criminalisation of low-risk products, disillusioned consumers, and a widening credibility gap in global health policy.

Reform is not simply desirable.

It is necessary.

What governments choose to do next will determine whether the next decade of nicotine policy advances public health—or repeats the costly, failed logic of prohibition.