I got to chat over email to the excellent vaping advocate Charles A Gardner, PhD!
If you are a THR (Tobacco Harm Reduction) fan there is no doubt you will have seen Charles on Twitter / X standing up for the rights of those who want to use lower risk options to quit smoking!
He caught my eye first with his Twitter campaign which started as an offer of $100 to anyone who could provide confirmed proof of even one death caused by inhaling nicotine vapour.
MONEY OFFER
68 million adults on Earth use #SaferNicotine vapes to avoid toxic forms of tobacco. Adults have been using these gizmos for 20 years now.
I will pay $100 to anyone who can provide confirmed proof of one (even one) death ever caused by inhaling nicotine vapor. pic.twitter.com/iMVM1ukFb1
— Charles A. Gardner, PhD (@ChaunceyGardner) January 11, 2022
This gained a lot of traction and the “pot” has increased to $9,500 (by various followers donating) and still no proof!
People keep pledging, so it’s $9,500 now.
— Charles A. Gardner, PhD (@ChaunceyGardner) April 14, 2023
On top of that he was the Executive Director of INNCO (International Network of Nicotine Consumers Organisations) and also holds a PhD in Developmental Neurobiology from the University of Michigan.
Plus he has served as a Health Attaché at the US Embassy in India, Senior Advisor to the WHO (World Health Organisation) and UNICEF.
He is a former smoker who sadly lost his father to COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) which ignites his passion for THR.
Tell me a little about your life and career so far…
I have worked in global health for 3 decades now. Most of my work focused on HIV, TB, malaria, dengue, rabies and other things that disproportionately affect people who live in low- and middle-income countries.
Tobacco-related death and disease does that too, but I avoided the subject like the plague.
I knew tobacco was a problem. Don’t get me wrong. Smoking killed my father and 2 grandparents. But I thought it was a problem that could not be solved.
I have worked on the Hill, for the US Department of Health and Human Services, the US State Department (Health Attaché overseas), Rockefeller Foundation, World Health Organization, Optimus Foundation, Global Alliance for Early Childhood Development, Foundation for a Smoke-Free World and the International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organizations (INNCO). It’s a weird career.
Have you been a smoker? If so how long did you smoke for?
I smoked for about 20 years. But I’m an outlier here. I started at the age of 31.
Yes, I had smoked a bit previously, but only when I was trekking across Europe or Mexico with a backpack (I thought it made me look cool while I was waiting for the next bus or something).
In my early 30s, a girl who I thought was my soulmate broke my heart. I think I started smoking as a form of self-destruction. My heart mended of course. Time heals all wounds. But after that, it was difficult to quit.
Do you vape? If so when did you start? What was your first kit?
I started vaping in 2014. This was just after I had returned to the United States after living for five years in Switzerland.
In 2013, I held a senior position in a foundation called the Optimus Foundation, based in Zurich. My ex-wife took my two young children out of Switzerland without my permission, and against the objections of my (obviously useless) Swiss lawyer.
So I was again not in a “happy place.” I searched for positions that could help me transition back to the USA, to stay in my boys’ lives.
The funny story here, is that I ended up on the semi-short list (~10 candidates) for President of a foundation that was then called the American Legacy Foundation (now “Truth Initiative”).
I was literally smoking a cigarette on the steps of a Zurich cathedral, on lunch break, as I answered the lead Headhunter’s questions. I understood the irony.
In the end, Robin Koval got the job, and drove that foundation off the rails. Might have been better if they had hired someone with a legitimate public health background.
How did vaping change your life?
Just the basics here: It unquestionably helped me quit smoking.
The most profound health change that I have experienced is this: When I smoked, I had 2-3 severe lung infections (colds/flu’s) every year.
Usually, one in the spring, and one in the fall, and then maybe a bonus one. Since I quit by vaping nicotine, and have continued to vape, I have had 2-3 MILD lung infections over the past 5 years.
This is a humongous health benefit, and a lived-experience I share with literally MILLIONS of adult nicotine vapers. I think it’s a bit odd how little research focuses on just this: lung infections.
But I know that in tobacco control research, the goal is to find harms. And if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
What flavour is your preference?
I will not voice any ‘flavor’ preference. But you need to put “flavour” or “flavor” (as we Yanks write) in quotation marks. Always. It is utterly Orwellian that artificial tobacco flavor is called “unflavored” while artificial fruit, dessert and candy flavors, and mint and menthol, are called ‘flavored.”
Nicotine gum is, literally, a candy. Not available in tobacco flavor because Big Pharma knows that no adult smoker would ever buy that. Not a “tobacco product,” though it delivers the exact same pharmaceutical-grade nicotine used in #SaferNicotine vapes and pouches. Hm. pic.twitter.com/9AYDVEUFcB
— Charles A. Gardner, PhD (@ChaunceyGardner) August 13, 2023
The misinformation is so demented that a lot of people in old-school tobacco control actually believe what THEY call “flavors” are “added to mask the harsh taste of nicotine.”
Spoiler: Nicotine has almost no taste or smell (they’re not lying; they just don’t care about truth).
When did you first become involved in vaping advocacy / tobacco harm reduction and why?
In 2018, Dr. Derek Yach launched the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. This was in the news.
Derek was my boss when I served, for five years, as a Program Officer in the Rockefeller Foundation. In that foundation, I directed grants to public-private product development partnerships that focused on HIV, TB, malaria and dengue. We talked a lot.
I knew he was one of the architects of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). I mostly ignored that fact when I was at Rockefeller (2003-2008) because, as I said, I thought trying to convince 1.1 billion smokers to quit was a fool’s errand. And, if I can admit this, I thought it was more than a little obsessive (like OCD-level obsessive).
So now, in 2018, Derek Yach was launching this new foundation. And I read that the friggin thing was funded by one of the lead characters in the rogues’ gallery of “evil” big tobacco villains: Philip Morris International (PMI).
So I called him and asked Derek, “What the hell are you doing?” The thing is, I know Dr. Yach. I know where his heart is because I worked with him very closely at the Rockefeller Foundation.
I also knew his history at the World Health Organization, and his pivotal contributions to establishing the first global health treaty: the FCTC.
And, because I had spent years working to support research on HIV/AIDS, I understood the “Harm Reduction.”
From 2018, I was in the tobacco control biz. The problem was, at that time, I knew almost nothing about the field.
It has been a very steep learning curve.
What current roles do you hold within THR?
I am currently unemployed. I shout things, and sometimes people listen.
What current projects / campaigns are you working on?
I am involved in a potentially game-changing effort to create a neutral venue for respectful, evidence-based, Chatham House Rule, discussion of future tobacco control policies. I can’t tell you who is involved, or anything about it. If I did, I would have to kill you. 😉 That’s a joke.
What do you feel needs to change regarding tobacco harm reduction Worldwide?
Everything
What do you feel is not working regarding THR in the world right now?
Everything
Any countries you feel are succeeding in THR?
No; not even the UK and NZ.
How would you advise vapers to get involved and stand up for their rights?
Join and (if you can) support your local national INNCO organization.
Have you ever been “star struck” meeting people who you admire – so who?
That’s a difficult question for me. My career is so weird that I have met a lot of very well-known people. And by “met,” I don’t mean “hi” and a handshake. I mean: get-to-know-you.
Like, they were in my home sharing a beer, or I was in their home and met-the-spouse, or in some cases literally drove those persons all over friggin New Delhi.
In these situations, my brain was always actively trying to suppress “star struck” instincts so that I could actually listen to what they said, and so I could interact with them as a human being rather than as a celebrity.
This was often a struggle. And I’m deliberately not name-dropping.
What is your proudest moment in your advocacy career?
My proudest moment was when the Governing Board of INNCO asked me to lead that organization.
What would be a campaign you would love to start if there were no obstacles?
The weakest card in the entire house-of-cards of disinformation that old-school tobacco control workers have erected over the past few decades is the role nicotine itself plays in this contentious field. It’s a serious problem for them.
The last thing they want, for example, would be a 2-year exhaustive study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) that is comparable to NASEM’s 2017 report on The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids.
My FANTASY campaign would focus on this alone: The health effects (good or bad) of nicotine.
Who (or W.H.O. hahaha 😉 ) is the biggest enemy when it comes to tobacco harm reduction?
No. Two completely unaccountable massive foundations are the biggest enemy: Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Truth Initiative.
Second mention goes to all the massive perverse incentives embedded in government and economic systems all over the world.
It is truly disturbing to contemplate how many people lose when (not if) cigarette sales drop to zero… And cigarette makers are actually the least of these losers.
Is there a message you would like to give our readers?
Do not lose hope!
All of us who advocate for tobacco harm reduction have been fighting what often seems to be a losing battle for years now. Some of you for over a decade (I’m a total newbie).
I take some solace from other fields. It “only” took 90 years after Reefer Madness and the deliberate demonization of cannabis before we started to rethink that prohibition (in America and some other countries).
America’s alcohol prohibition “only” lasted 13 years, and was yet another stupid dabble in the demonization of a psychoactive drug (alcohol).
Nicotine is literally THE most extensively studied psychoactive drug in history. And also the most misunderstood by the public now, thanks to 3 decades of tobacco control messaging (e.g., deliberately using the words tobacco, smoking and nicotine as if they are synonyms).
USA
Alcohol: Demonized 1920; de-demonized 1933
Cannabis: Demonized from 1930s; de-demonizing now
Psilocybin: Demonized 1968; de-demonizing now
Nicotine: Demonized 1988…?Is it time to de-demonize nicotine?https://t.co/GtXkRohWVb
— Charles A. Gardner, PhD (@ChaunceyGardner) August 29, 2023
The fight against old-school tobacco control zealots is surely “the envy of Sisyphus.” But the thing is, we WILL win.
The evidence is now so overwhelming that we will eventually win. And the evidence will only grow. And I can tell you this. Old-school experts in the field of tobacco control are shifting to the fence.
Those on the fence are now shifting toward harm reduction. And those who already favored harm reduction are getting more aggressive and vocal.
We are winning. It’s just difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel, yet.
Thank You Charles!
I would like to thank Charles so much for taking time out of his busy schedule to chat to me!
He is an excellent advocate and THR is lucky to have him on board!
You can get in touch with him on his Twitter / X account – ChaunceyGardner.
