By Michael Landl, Di­rec­tor of the World Vapers’ Al­liance

Lat­er this year, lead­ers from all over the world will meet in Gene­va at COP11, a ma­jor gath­er­ing or­gan­ised by the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) to shape to­bac­co pol­i­cy. Al­though the goal is to re­duce ill­ness­es and deaths from smok­ing, the cur­rent ap­proach threat­ens to over­look one of the best tools we have—harm re­duc­tion.

Harm re­duc­tion is a sim­ple but hu­mane con­cept: in­stead of just telling peo­ple to quit smok­ing—a chal­lenge that’s in­cred­i­bly hard and, for many, sim­ply not pos­si­ble—we must of­fer more op­tions.

Peo­ple who smoke de­serve ac­cess to less harm­ful al­ter­na­tives like va­p­ing, nico­tine pouch­es, and heat-not-burn prod­ucts. Sci­ence has shown that these prod­ucts are sig­nif­i­cant­ly less harm­ful than tra­di­tion­al cig­a­rettes. They don’t in­volve com­bus­tion, which is what pro­duces the tox­ic smoke that caus­es can­cer, heart dis­ease, and oth­er fa­tal ill­ness­es. Re­mov­ing the smoke re­moves most of the harm.

Around the world, mil­lions of for­mer smok­ers have al­ready suc­ceed­ed in quit­ting by switch­ing to these al­ter­na­tives. Coun­tries that have lis­tened to the ev­i­dence, like Swe­den, the UK, and New Zealand, have seen rapid drops in smok­ing rates. Their se­cret? Giv­ing peo­ple safer choic­es—re­al, prac­ti­cal al­ter­na­tives to cig­a­rettes—rather than in­sist­ing on an “all or noth­ing” ap­proach. Yet, at COP11, in­stead of wel­com­ing these ad­vance­ments, the agen­da tries to dis­miss harm re­duc­tion as just a “nar­ra­tive,” ig­nor­ing both sci­ence and the lives changed by safer prod­ucts.

Even more frus­trat­ing is how small­er coun­tries like Trinidad and To­ba­go are of­ten ig­nored in these in­ter­na­tion­al dis­cus­sions, over­shad­owed by the pow­er­ful in­flu­ence of wealthy donors such as Michael Bloomberg. But Trinidad and To­ba­go is far more im­por­tant than any­one’s ego. The na­tion should refuse to be side­lined and in­sist that its voice is heard clear­ly and strong­ly.

Now is the mo­ment for Trinidad and To­ba­go to show re­al lead­er­ship. The del­e­ga­tion should speak out force­ful­ly in favour of ev­i­dence-based pol­i­cy­mak­ing and de­fend the right to ac­cess safer al­ter­na­tives. In­stead of al­low­ing ide­o­log­i­cal bias to dom­i­nate, they can call for open, con­struc­tive di­a­logue that in­cludes all the tools need­ed to re­duce smok­ing.

By stand­ing up for harm re­duc­tion, Trinidad and To­ba­go would cham­pi­on not on­ly its own pub­lic health but set a pow­er­ful ex­am­ple for oth­er small and medi­um coun­tries of­ten over­looked at these ne­go­ti­a­tions. Ad­vo­cat­ing for trans­paren­cy, re­ject­ing blan­ket bans on safer prod­ucts, and in­sist­ing that con­sumers have a seat at the ta­ble are cru­cial steps for­ward.

To­bac­co harm re­duc­tion is not a trick or a nar­ra­tive; it’s a life-sav­ing strat­e­gy. Trinidad and To­ba­go has the pow­er and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to be a voice for sci­ence, fair­ness, and progress at COP11. The world is watch­ing. It is time to speak up.

This ar­ti­cle is a paid ad­ver­to­r­i­al.