GINN is a business association representing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the EU that are part of the safer nicotine products value chain. We comply fully with all EU transparency rules and requirements, and we have no connections—financial, material, or membership—to the multinational tobacco companies identified in recent reports.
A new publication from STOP and Contre-Feu repeats a familiar narrative—lifted directly from the University of Bath’s “Tobacco Tactics”—claiming that GINN is part of a lobby pushing a “false harm reduction narrative” and implying links to Big Tobacco.
Let’s be clear:
👉 GINN has no ties to multinational tobacco companies.
👉 Advocating for reduced-risk products does not make an organisation a proxy for Big Tobacco.
The logic being used is a textbook straw man. By this standard, even public health authorities that support harm reduction—providing smokers with access to smokeless alternatives—would be branded “tobacco aligned” simply because the products they endorse are also sold by multinational tobacco companies. That’s absurd.
What’s worse is the deliberate shift away from what actually matters in public policy:
âś… Ensuring nicotine products are used only by adults
âś… Prioritising the least harmful forms of consumption
âś… Keeping children away from all nicotine
âś… Keeping smoke away from everyone
Instead of focusing on these priorities, energy is being spent on ad hominem attacks designed to silence those advocating for proportionate, evidence-based regulation.
Harm reduction isn’t a marketing slogan. It’s a globally recognised public health strategy—embedded in the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, supported by decades of toxicology and epidemiology, and validated by countries with the world’s lowest smoking rates.
GINN exists to give voice to responsible manufacturers and retailers of reduced-risk nicotine products because adults deserve access to safer alternatives. We welcome honest debate and rigorous scientific challenge. What we reject is misinformation dressed up as watchdog activism.
Mischaracterisation doesn’t protect public health. It doesn’t help smokers. It doesn’t safeguard youth. It doesn’t support responsible businesses.
It helps no one.
HarmReduction PublicHealth ScienceBasedPolicy NicotinePolicy SaferNicotine SmokeFreeFuture RiskProportionateRegulation TransparencyMatters IndependentVoices GlobalHealthPolicy
