By HealthTimes
When forty-seven-year-old Idai Moyo from Harare finally managed to quit smoking after two decades, it wasn’t because she suddenly found the willpower that had eluded her for years. It was because she discovered something she hadn’t known existed — a smoke-free nicotine alternative that allowed her to move away from cigarettes gradually, without withdrawal or shame.
No one told me,” she said. “If I’d known earlier, I would have stopped long ago.”
Her words capture a moral dilemma at the heart of global tobacco control: why are millions of people like Idai denied access to truthful, science-based information about safer nicotine alternatives?
As the world prepares for COP11 of the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), member states are set to debate regulations that could determine the fate of smoke-free alternatives such as vaping products, nicotine pouches and heated tobacco products. Yet, the discussion risks being dominated by ideology rather than evidence. The consequences are not abstract — they are deeply human.
Information as a Human Right
At its core, the right to information is not a luxury or a privilege; it is a cornerstone of human rights. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) guarantees the right ‘to seek, receive and impart all available information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.’ Similarly, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) recognises the right to health, which includes the right of each individual to access the necessary information to make optimum choices and informed decisions about their health.
When governments restrict or suppress factual communication about safer nicotine products, they are not protecting public health — they are denying individuals their right to health. The logic is simple: a person cannot make a healthier choice if the information that would allow them to do so is hidden, distorted or censored.
This is not theoretical. Across many African countries, public discourse on harm reduction remains heavily restricted. In some cases, health authorities issue warnings equating vaping or nicotine pouches with cigarettes, despite broad scientific consensus that the risk profiles differ dramatically. According to Public Health England, vaping is at least 95% less harmful than smoking. Yet in many nations, consumers are never told this and worse still, these novel products are banned. In nations such as Angola even universally accepted cessation products like Nicotine Replacement Therapy patches or chewing gum are banned.
The result is a silent injustice — millions continue to smoke, not because they choose to, but because they are kept ignorant of safer options.
Science vs. Silence
Over 8 million people die every year from smoking-related diseases, according to the WHO. The overwhelming majority of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, where health systems are already overstretched. Preventing non-communicable disease – through safer alternatives – is not only more humane, it’s economically sound. The World Bank estimates that tobacco-related illness costs the global economy over US$1.4 trillion annually in healthcare and lost productivity.
Yet, despite mounting evidence that harm reduction works, global messaging remains inconsistent. The United Kingdom has integrated vaping into its national tobacco control strategy, offering it through the National Health Service (NHS) as a cessation aid. Sweden, through its acceptance of snus, has achieved a smoking rate below 5%, making it effectively the first ‘smoke-free’ nation in the world. In Japan, the introduction of heated tobacco products has led to a 40% drop in cigarette sales since 2014.
These are not outliers — they are key examples of evidence in action. However if the status quo perpetuates at COP11, progressive countries like the UK and Sweden will sit alongside others advocating bans on the very products that helped them succeed. This inconsistency raises a fundamental ethical question: Is it right to suppress life-saving information simply because it conflicts with ideology?
The Right to Choose Health
Choice requires empowerment, and empowerment depends on awareness and education. Smokers who want to quit — but can’t — are not failures; they are people trapped in a system that often frames them as moral offenders rather than individuals with a health challenge. When regulators, NGOs or governments block or distort information about reduced-risk products, they reinforce stigma and perpetuate harm.
Research by Eurobarometer (2020) found that 80% of European smokers who permanently switched to vaping had tried to quit smoking before, often multiple times. This underscores an important point: people are not waiting for permission to change – they are waiting for truth.
In the African context, the stakes are even higher. Tobacco consumption on the continent is expected to increase by nearly 40% by 2030, even as it declines elsewhere. Africa’s youth population – the youngest in the world – is both vulnerable and impressionable. Denying them access to factual, science-based information does not protect them; it blinds them. Without education, misinformation fills the vacuum, and combustible cigarettes remain the default.
Censorship or Compassion?
As COP11 convenes, the global public health community faces a defining choice. Should the goal be to control information or to empower individuals with knowledge? Should the emphasis be on prohibition or progress?
Some countries have adopted extreme measures – outright bans on vaping products or the dissemination of negative information about them. These actions are often justified as precautionary. Yet in practice, they amount to information censorship that drives adult smokers back to the most dangerous form of nicotine delivery: cigarettes.
True public health is not paternalism; it is partnership. It treats citizens as capable of making healthier choices when given honest, transparent information. In the same way that people are educated about safer sex or responsible alcohol consumption, smokers deserve the right to know the continuum of risk within nicotine products.
A Call for Transparency and Humanity
The right to information is not an abstract legal principle — it is the lifeline between ignorance and empowerment, between sickness and survival. Smokers like Idai are not asking for a free pass; they are asking for full disclosure of the facts in a way that is not obscured by dogma. They are asking for the right to make an informed choice about their own health.
As delegates gather for COP11, one principle must guide every discussion: no policy that withholds information or denies access to safer alternatives can claim to uphold the right to health.
Science should not be a secret.
The future of tobacco control must not be built on silence, but on transparency – not on coercion, but on choice.
