Global vaping advocacy group World Vapers’ Alliance launches #BackVapingBeatSmoking action in Warsaw to draw attention of the Polish politicians

WARSAW, POLAND, OCTOBER 13 — A global advocacy group for vaping, World Vapers’ Alliance (WVA), launches the #BackVapingBeatSmoking campaign in Warsaw to encourage Polish policymakers to embrace harm reduction and vaping. As part of their #BackVapingBeatSmoking campaign, the WVA delivered the message that vaping can save one million lives in Poland and 19 million lives in Europe to representatives of the PIS, Platforma Obywatelska. 

The WVA presented their “Vaping Products Directive” to show how vaping needs to be treated to fulfil its full potential for public health. Additionally, the WVA unveiled an art installation in the shape of the falling domino moved across the Polish capital to draw attention to the importance of tobacco harm reduction.

“Only in Poland, more than one million smokers could potentially switch to vaping if the Government embraced harm reduction. This means, one million lives could be saved from tobacco-related illnesses if politicians stop banning flavours, raising taxes and lowering nicotine levels in e-liquids. In Poland, more than 70 thousand people die every year from tobacco smoking, and if politicians don’t change their approach to harm reduction, this number will keep growing,” said Michael Landl, director of the WVA.

The partner of the World Vapers’ Alliance is the Polish organization “Law for people” which addresses civil liberties issues and the dangers of over-regulating the market for goods and services. 

“We are joining forces with the World Vapers’ Alliance to demand changes from the Polish politicians as the situation around harm reduction becomes very disturbing for consumers, businesses and the civil society. The current government implemented recently increased taxes on e-liquids not realising the possible consequences for public health. We want a thorough analysis and broad public debate to precede legislative actions that interfere with the daily lives of Poles.” said Sara Lament-Hamodi, Coordinator of the Prawo dla ludzi campaign. 

The Polish installation comes as a part of the broader #BackVapingBeatSmokin campaign that the group launched last week in Strasbourg. WVA hosted a protest art installation with the message “Don’t Let 19 Million Lives Fall” in front of the European Parliament to draw attention of the EU policymakers to the Europe-wide need to embrace harm reduction.

In the following weeks, WVA will host similar installations in Czech Republic, Italy, Portugal, and Belgium. The group is also running a Europe-wide petition asking the EU policymakers to acknowledge vaping as a tobacco harm reduction mechanism and refrain from overregulating the most successful smoking-cessation aid in the upcoming review of the EU tobacco regulation. The petition will be delivered to the European Parliament in Brussels in November. 

“Earlier this year, more than 24,000 EU citizens raised their voices in the Commission-run public consultation on tobacco legislation asking the regulators not to ban vaping. Public institutions must listen to the consumers. 5% of Polish adult populations are vapers, and it’s time their voices are heard!” added Landl.