Trinidad and To­ba­go is mov­ing ahead with an ap­proach to to­bac­co pol­i­cy that can fi­nal­ly make a dif­fer­ence. For years, the fo­cus has been on bans and re­stric­tions, but a re­al shift is hap­pen­ing now. The Min­istry of Health has con­firmed that it’s col­lect­ing da­ta to build the ground­work for reg­u­lat­ing re­duced-risk prod­ucts like va­p­ing, nico­tine pouch­es, and heat-not-burn de­vices. This is a sign that the coun­try recog­nis­es the need for some­thing new.

What’s clear is that the old ways have not de­liv­ered re­sults. Smok­ing re­mains stub­born­ly high, with near­ly one in five adults still smok­ing and al­most 900 deaths every year caused by to­bac­co. There’s al­so no law deal­ing specif­i­cal­ly with va­p­ing, mean­ing prod­ucts re­main in a grey zone. This leaves both smok­ers and those in­ter­est­ed in switch­ing with­out clar­i­ty or di­rec­tion. That needs to change.

The To­bac­co Con­trol Unit, un­der the Min­istry of Health, clear­ly out­lines the mis­sion on its web­site: “We work to re­duce to­bac­co-re­lat­ed harm, pro­mote health­i­er en­vi­ron­ments, and pro­tect the pub­lic from the dan­gers of to­bac­co use.” That mis­sion should guide the next chap­ter of pol­i­cy.

It is time for Trinidad and To­ba­go to em­brace a holis­tic to­bac­co harm re­duc­tion strat­e­gy. This means in­te­grat­ing va­p­ing, nico­tine pouch­es and heat-not-burn prod­ucts in­to a pub­lic health ap­proach that em­pha­sis­es re­al risk re­duc­tion, not just pro­hi­bi­tion. There is clear ev­i­dence from coun­tries such as Swe­den and the UK that switch­ing to less harm­ful al­ter­na­tives can sharply cut the bur­den of smok­ing-re­lat­ed death and dis­ease. The ex­pe­ri­ence is the same around the world: when smok­ers have ac­cess to less risky prod­ucts, they switch in large num­bers and pub­lic health im­proves.

But in­ter­na­tion­al de­bate about harm re­duc­tion is stuck. The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion con­tin­ues to push out­dat­ed strate­gies, ig­nor­ing ev­i­dence and the voic­es of mil­lions who have switched for the bet­ter. At glob­al con­fer­ences such as FCTC COP 11, WHO bu­reau­crats close the doors to sci­ence and to re­al peo­ple while let­ting pri­vate donors and an­ti-in­no­va­tion in­ter­ests set the agen­da. Coun­tries like Trinidad and To­ba­go should not let them­selves be pushed around at the ne­go­ti­at­ing ta­ble. Small states have a voice and can set an ex­am­ple by adopt­ing mea­sures that put peo­ple first and re­spect their choic­es.

Trinidad and To­ba­go can do what works: col­lect the da­ta, un­der­stand the risks and reg­u­late in a way that en­cour­ages smok­ers to switch to less harm­ful prod­ucts. The coun­try does not need to fol­low the tired play­book hand­ed down by WHO. In­stead, it can chart a path that puts pub­lic health and com­mon sense at the cen­tre.

There is a re­al chance for change. The foun­da­tion is al­ready there in the health min­istry’s own lan­guage. Now is the mo­ment to act, to put harm re­duc­tion front and cen­tre and to help more peo­ple quit cig­a­rettes.

The is a spon­sored opin­ion ar­ti­cle.