By Timothy S. Donahue

Top Takeaways:

• Advocacy event: Harm reduction advocates use World Vape Day to promote vaping, nicotine pouches, and heated tobacco products.
• Global divide: The U.S. is moving toward a more permissive vaping framework, while Russia and other countries continue pursuing bans.
• Household impact: New survey data found strong support for smoke-free nicotine products among people who witnessed others switch.

One day before the World Health Organization’s World No Tobacco Day (May 31) campaign takes center stage, harm reduction advocates worldwide spent the week delivering a different message: smokers deserve access to alternatives to combustible cigarettes.

World Vape Day 2026, organized around the theme “One Switch – Everyone Wins,” brought together vaping consumers, former smokers, and advocacy groups calling for greater recognition of vaping products, nicotine pouches, and heated tobacco products as tools to reduce smoking-related harm.

The annual event, always held the day before World No Tobacco Day, has become a focal point for the growing divide between supporters of tobacco harm reduction and public health organizations that continue to push for tighter restrictions on alternative nicotine products.

According to organizers, consumers in countries including Germany, South Africa, and Argentina, as well as elsewhere, used the occasion to share personal experiences of quitting smoking and to urge policymakers to distinguish between combustible cigarettes and smoke-free alternatives.

“The WHO has been running the same playbook for years. Nicotine is the enemy, alternatives are industry tactics, and anyone who disagrees is compromised,” said Michael Landl, an Austrian policy advocate and director of the World Vapers’ Alliance. “Meanwhile, 8 million people a year die from smoking. That is not a public health record to be proud of.”

At the center of the campaign is a simple argument: nicotine may be addictive, but it is the smoke from burning tobacco that causes the overwhelming majority of smoking-related disease.

Advocates cite growing evidence that smokers who completely switch away from cigarettes can significantly reduce their exposure to toxic chemicals produced by combustion.

Landl said the benefits extend beyond smokers. Secondhand smoke exposure has long been linked to increased risk of asthma, bronchitis, and other respiratory illnesses, particularly among children. Harm reduction advocates argue that when smokers switch completely to smoke-free products, those risks are substantially reduced for family members and others around them.

“Every country that has cut smoking fast did it by giving smokers real alternatives. World Vape Day exists to remind policymakers that the evidence is there. That we consumers are not anecdotes, we are the evidence. The tools are there. The only thing missing is the political will in too many countries,” Landl said.

This week, new survey data from We Are Innovation, a global network of more than 50 think tanks, foundations and NGOs focused on innovation policy and regulatory issues, reinforced that message. The Ipsos-conducted survey of more than 4,000 respondents across the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France and Japan focused not on former smokers themselves but on the friends, partners and family members who witnessed their quitting.

Respondents reported improvements in physical well-being, emotional health, social interactions, and overall quality of life after someone close to them switched from cigarettes to an innovative nicotine product. The most significant benefit reported was reduced exposure to secondhand smoke.

Support for adult access to smoke-free nicotine products was also strong among those who had witnessed a successful switch, ranging from 70% in Canada to 86% in the United Kingdom.

“For too long, the debate on innovative nicotine products has ignored the people most affected by it. It is not just smokers, but their families, partners and friends,” said Federico N. Fernández, CEO of We Are Innovation. “This survey gives them a voice. And what they are telling us is both clear and humane: access to innovation saves lives and improves the well-being of entire communities.”

Varying Winds

As advocates celebrated World Vape Day, governments and regulators continued to pursue dramatically different regulatory paths.

In the United States, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently adopted a more flexible enforcement approach for certain vaping product applications, a move that could eventually allow hundreds of additional products to remain on the market during review.

In early May, the U.S. FDA authorized four Glas electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) products through the premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) pathway, marking the agency’s first authorization of non-tobacco, non-menthol-flavored e-cigarettes that include device-level age-restriction technology.

The authorized products receiving the marketing granted orders (MGOs) are Classic Menthol, Fresh Menthol, Gold (Mango), and Sapphire (Blueberry). The 5% nicotine e-liquid pods are now permitted for legal sale in the United States to adults 21 and older.

Supporters say the shift acknowledges the reality of a marketplace where unauthorized products dominate sales and could help transition consumers to a more regulated environment.

“Of course, we want to keep nicotine out of the hands of young people, but adult smokers need alternatives,” said Vaughn Rees, director of the Center for Global Tobacco Control at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Elsewhere, regulators are moving in the opposite direction. Russia is considering a nationwide vape ban, while Kazakhstan continues to enforce one of the world’s strictest prohibitions on vaping products.

A recent study in Kazakhstan found that one year after the country’s vape ban took effect, more than half of users continued vaping, while only 5% reported quitting nicotine entirely. For advocates, those findings underscore the argument that regulation is more effective than prohibition.

They often cite countries such as Sweden, which has achieved smoke-free status, along with the United Kingdom and New Zealand, where smoking rates have fallen sharply while regulated smoke-free alternatives remain available to adults.

The UK has formally moved to phase out smoking for future generations, as the Tobacco and Vapes Bill received Royal Assent on April 29 and became law. The legislation makes it illegal to sell tobacco to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2009, a policy intended to create what officials call the country’s first “smoke-free generation.”

The Maldives is the only other country enforcing a ban on tobacco for future generations, preventing anyone born on or after January 1, 2007, from buying, using, or selling tobacco products. The measure took effect on November 1, 2025. The island nation was the first to implement a permanent, population-wide birth-year-based ban.

New Zealand, in 2022, passed the first-ever legislation that introduced a steadily rising smoking age to stop those born after January 2009 from ever being able to legally buy cigarettes. The country repealed the law in 2023.

For the nicotine industry, World Vape Day has evolved into more than an awareness campaign. It has become an annual reminder of the central question facing regulators worldwide: whether smoke-free nicotine products should be treated as part of the smoking problem—or part of the solution.