Academic Disconnected From Reality
The academic John Ioannidis stands accused of being disconnected from reality by tobacco harm reduction expert Clive Bates
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by Dave Cross
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“Most anti-tobacco measures to date target demand (eg, higher excise taxes). However, the endgame might require reducing supply,” writes Ioannidis, an academic at Stanford University.
He sees the COVID-19 pandemic as presenting the world with a golden opportunity to prevent the tobacco industry from emerging “as a winner from this global event”. He skims over the potential for job losses and removing individual rights to choose to smoke as the global response to the virus “offers a precedent for drastic action taken to eliminate the tobacco industry”.
Ioannidis is respected in the world of statistical analysis but, in stepping out of his area of expertise, he has left himself open to the accusation of being divorced from reality by Clive Bates, who says: “The flaws in the reasoning in this piece are many and fatal”.
Bates asks: “When did eliminating the tobacco industry become a public health goal?”
“A determined by as yet non-existent World government could theoretically 'eliminate the tobacco industry' but it wouldn't eliminate the demand for the drug nicotine. Eliminating supply while being unable to eliminate demand is a recipe for trouble.”
Clive points to to the failed and costly war on drugs and the collapse of America’s prohibition on alcohol.
“In fact, the most promising approach to reducing health harms would not eliminate the tobacco industry at all but push it towards meeting the demand for nicotine with non-combustible products - vapour, heated or smokeless tobacco.”
Ioannidis’ belief in tobacco controllers being able to enact a worldwide ban on all tobacco products receives a major blow – by his own words: “public health has little experience in enforcing major changes that disrupt markets”.
The prohibitionist mindset illustrated by Ioannidis runs to the core of those opposing vaping, to which Clive calls a, “grossly illiberal, coercive and intrusive overreach of state power into the personal behaviour of millions of people, many of whom may not wish to quit smoking and have options to help them if they do.”
Clive refutes any suggestion that as populations have largely supported lockdowns and other virus controlling measures that they’d happily sit by and watch further “invasive state action” curb their rights and freedoms.
He continues by pointing out that Ioannidis has failed to reference one country that actually tried to implement a full ban on tobacco products during the pandemic. South Africa’s approach infuriated tobacco users and vapers, and led to a thriving black market driven in part by a man close to Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma [link].
Clive concludes: “By far the best way to deal with the problem of smoking-related harms is to go with the grain of consumer preferences (most do not want to die an agonising death, but many do like nicotine) and to reshape the market for nicotine to remove the primary vector of harm: the smoke. We need to approach 'the endgame' with some care, with a clear eye on the goals, with a sense of pragmatism about what can be achieved in politics and with the consent of the public and consumers.”
Related:
- “Does the COVID-19 pandemic provide an opportunity to eliminate the tobacco industry?” by John P A Ioannidis – [link]
- “The case for prohibition built on a false premise and disconnected from reality” by Clive Bates – [link]
Photo Credit:
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay
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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