Michael Russel Orator Announced
New Nicotine Alliance’s Louise Ross has been invited to give the Michael Russel oration at this year’s Global Forum for Nicotine in Warsaw, Poland
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by Dave Cross
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Louise managed Leicester’s Stop Smoking Service from 2004 to 2018. She was sceptical about vaping as it began to take off in the early days, but a chance meeting with vapers at the first E-Cigarette Summit led her to the conclusion that it offered a huge potential in reversing declining smoking quit rates.
Under her leadership, the Leicester service rebranded itself as the first “Ecig-friendly” quit service in the United Kingdom. It was a huge success and went on to influence many other services to adopt a similar strategy. Louise’s influence within the NHS helped to shape vaping policies implemented by mental health services and NHS Trusts.
It is fitting that her record of excellence in promoting tobacco harm reduction is recognised with this oration, following in the footsteps of Michael Russel, whose work formed much of the evidence base that inspired the new NHS Stop Smoking services.
Louise commented: “I was asked by Gerry Stimson if I’d do the Michael Russel Oration. I did a bit of a double take when he first said it because I didn’t think I’d heard right. And I must say, I’m so honoured to be asked.”
“At first I almost said ‘no’ because I didn’t feel I’d got enough to give, to honour the great Michael Russel, but Gerry persuaded me, Paddy [Costall] was also very affirming and encouraging and said that this is a story that could be told and people would like to hear it. I’m going to leap into the unknown and do it, and I hope that what I do present for the oration honours Michael Russel’s memory in the right way.”
“What I want to do is explain how we need to listen to consumers and bring our belief in what is the right thing to do for them, rather than have the dogma you see across the world: ‘people must stop smoking this way,’ ‘people shouldn’t use vape long-term,’ ‘nicotine is bad,’ ‘addiction is bad,’ all that sort of thing.”
“We need to meet consumers where they are and acknowledge that it’s their voice that matters - more than any of the constructs we might put in place that actually act as barriers to getting them from smoking to smoke-free. There’s a lot to be done there, and that’s what I want to convey.”
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Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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