Harry Shapiro

Harry’s blog 78: The end of the beginning

Dec. 20, 2018

  I have spent the past year working with an exemplary group of people to produce the first Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction report. The report was launched in Geneva in October, receiving i...

Harry’s blog 77: Between a hard rock and a soft face

Dec. 6, 2018

Sometime in the 1990s, the UK TV station Channel 4 conducted what was called A Citizens’ Jury concerning drugs. A group of 12 citizens were chosen to hear some actual evidence-based information ab...

Harry’s blog 76: When money talks, the truth walks

Nov. 27, 2018

Before you embark on this nefarious enterprise, make sure you have sufficient funds to deliver on all that follows. Make your message believable even if it is the opposite of the truth. To make so...

Harry’s blog 75: Getting grown up about nicotine

Nov. 19, 2018

Yet this didn’t stop the BBC having a sensible and interesting discussion about developments in the global alcohol market on its Radio 4 business programme, ‘The Bottom Line’. One of the station’s...

Harry’s blog 74: A charter for tobacco harm reduction?

Nov. 11, 2018

As readers of the Global State of THR might recall, this Declaration repeats many past global public health ‘health for all with nobody left behind’ aspirations that wither on the vine. But any ex...

Harry’s blog 73: Revelations about nicotine replacement therapy

Oct. 28, 2018

The results make interesting reading. Between 2012 and October 2018, there were 666 discrete adverse reactions reported regarding ten NRT products including six fatal adverse reactions. Note, and ...

Harry’s blog 72: Heat and Burn

Oct. 18, 2018

  Right at the front of the report it states very clearly that it was “Supported by an unsolicited grant from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. The Foundation played no part in determining th...

Harry’s blog 71: No Fire, No Smoke but plenty of Heat

Oct. 8, 2018

Launch day was a huge success and a major step forward in the fight to gaining acceptance of tobacco harm reduction at the international level. The YouTube video link below will give you a taster ...

Harry's Blog #70: Are tobacco regulators Big Tobacco’s new best mates?

Sept. 25, 2018

Fear not dear shareholder because government legislators are covering the new product development and marketing spend so you won’t be out of pocket. In the wake of the moral panic over JUUL, the F...

Harry's Blog #69: No Fire, No Smoke: the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction 2018 (GSTHR)

Sept. 11, 2018

The central message of the report is enshrined in the title – if you want to consume nicotine, but don’t light up a cigarette, there is no smoke, and if there is no smoke, the release of potential...