Thinking 'bout THR News & Views
December 12-15, 2024
Year-end is the time for reflection and goal setting.
You never know when thinking outside the box will end up helping you achieve your goals faster.
No matter what side of the nicotine aisle you’re on, you might reflect on 2024 and see victories and defeats. Do you have a tally card of wins and losses?
I do not have a tally. I’ve never been good at keeping score. I don’t see policies I advocate for or against as winning or losing. Policies are things, and I don't visualize things very well.
I see people. I see those who didn’t start smoking or were able to quit smoking as a good thing - they won. I see those who got sick or died from smoking as a bad thing - they lost. My advocacy efforts are not about me; they are about those people. It makes it impossible for me to win or lose. My dream is to help them win. I hope that’s your dream, too.
In my last newsletter, I discussed how my brain puts people into boxes. I expressed gratitude to those of you who refuse to be put into a box. You’re helping me learn a skill that will enhance my quality of life and help me grow.
I invite all of you to grow with me. Don’t put yourself or your beliefs into a box that prevents you from seeing and hearing others. Growth comes from knowledge and understanding where other people are coming from.
Keep inviting people you disagree with to the conversation. And please accept those invitations from people you disagree with. Make a New Year’s resolution to ask at least one person to dinner you don’t see eye to eye with. Approach that conversation with curiosity. Something magical happens when we break bread together!
2024 was a year of surprises for me. After watching several conferences, I discovered an appreciation for various perspectives. It was OK that some speakers made me squirm a bit. It blew me away that some people I expected to disagree with 100% ended up saying things I could relate to and agree with. Thank you, GTNF, FDLI, NTSC, Morven Dialogue, and other events, for ensuring that a diverse group of people were given a platform to be heard.
I hope to see more of that in 2025. My wish for the new year is inclusive conversations in which everyone has a seat at the table and participants strive to seek balance.
Until next time…
PS: I dedicate this issue to the struggle between what we feel is right or wrong, the harm caused by treating others as enemies, and what can be gained if we’re willing to change our minds. While we may feel our goals are admirable, we must never forget the potential for unintended consequences or that sometimes goals require tradeoffs to achieve them.
Understanding experts’ conflicting perspectives on tobacco harm reduction and e-cigarettes: An interpretive policy analysis. “As the analysis above demonstrates, tobacco harm reduction remains a highly contested topic. There are several implications of the results presented: First, the majority of meanings attached to tobacco harm reduction were rooted in values, ideology, politics, and opinion. Rather than simply disagreeing about the scientific evidence, respondents had different ideological positions on the War on Drugs, the private sector, the tobacco industry, social justice principles, the inevitability of nicotine use, and the acceptability of addiction…”
Fear, intimidation, and bullying do not lend themselves to productive conversations, common ground, or well-rounded research. When we treat our goals as the reason to be at war with each other, we are contributing to millions of smoking-related deaths because we’re not working together to solve the problem. The continued polarization will never lead to solutions. How ugly has the war been? Take a trip down memory lane with me:
Polarization Within the Field of Tobacco and Nicotine Science and its Potential Impact on Trainees.
On-line abuse and trolling by pro-tobacco and vaping activists.
In the Ugly Nicotine Debate, Being Kind Isn’t Just Right—It’s Effective.
Lack of consideration for the unintended consequences of a proposed policy, agenda, or goal can backfire on us and cause issues we didn’t count on. As we approach the new year, what are your goals for the nicotine space? Which policies do you believe help achieve those goals? Have you made a list of potential unintended consequences of those policies? What tradeoffs are you willing to support to see those policies enacted? What would it take to change your mind about those policies and shift your goals to a different perspective?
Finally, what can we do differently so that items like those in the memory lane list above never have to be written again?
This LinkedIn post by Angela Raspass reminds us that it’s important to kindly frame our thoughts about ourselves when reflecting on things we’ve done. She calls it Kindsight. She calls her inner critic Helga. Mine doesn’t have a name. I refer to mine as the baseball bat in my brain. At times, it is ruthless in the beating it gives me. What thoughts about yourself can you reframe in a more positive (and kind) way? What past actions of others can you think of more kindly?
What does it feel like to be wrong?
Jeffrey Weiss - “Though FDA has authorized multiple non-combustible products as “appropriate for the protection of public health” since 2015 (including vaping, SNUS and heated tobacco products), this is essentially a secret between FDA and the companies receiving those authorizations. That needs to change.”
Adversaries to Allies: Transforming Academic Conflict - Cory Clark.
GAINS AND LOSSES | Will Godfrey gives us his New Years' Wishes for 2025. (Thank you for mentioning Bob! ~Skip)
67% of Oxfordshire smokers have successfully quit in 2024. “In Oxfordshire, the total spend on stop smoking services was £125,030, which equates to an average cost of £440 per successful quitter.”
In Biden administration’s final days, FDA advances proposal to set a nicotine limit on tobacco products. “Not all smokers would quit if nicotine levels were limited, experts say, nor would all smoking-related diseases disappear, since tobacco products contain other chemicals that can be harmful for health.”
Time for a Concerted Push to Get Vapes in All Prisons. “Tobacco harm reduction in the United States, like most other harm reduction, tends to ignore the prison-industrial complex and the people held captive there. But prison is ripe for policy change. Likely, there is no larger group of affected people in the same place suffering in the same way.”
Introducing Policy & Progress in Tobacco Harm Reduction & Thoughts on Where THR Can Go with President Trump. “Authorizing more products that are backed by solid science and evidence will be key to eliminating the illegal market and will support an “all of the above” strategy of offering adults who smoke a wide array of paths away from cigarettes, including alternative products, prescription medications, traditional nicotine replacement products, therapy and more.”
From Legislation to Litigation: The Battle Over Tobacco Harm Reduction. “The FDA's failure to authorize safer alternatives has sown confusion among Americans, detrimentally impacting those who most need support. Studies from 2017 and 2022 revealed significant public misconceptions about nicotine and cancer, highlighting the urgent need for FDA reform.”
Montague Board of Health approves nicotine pouch restriction. “Customers won’t find nicotine pouches on the shelves of any Montague stores after March 1, 2025, following a Wednesday night decision by the Board of Health to revise the town’s existing tobacco sales restrictions.”
December: Month - Universal Human Rights Month, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) Awareness Month. Day - Dec 17 - (CA) Anti-Bullying Day (a reminder that being an advocate, researcher, lawmaker, journalist, regulator, etc., ≠ being a bully), Dec 20 - International Human Solidarity Day.
Notes:
I create these newsletters as a personal project. They are not affiliated with any current or past employers or groups I do volunteer work with. I receive no financial compensation for my efforts to create these newsletters.
My blog, Skip's Corner, has an X/Twitter account. My personal accounts are on BlueSky, LinkedIn, and X (Twitter).