Patients’ voices must drive the fight against nicotine and tobacco industry tactics
WPA welcomes WHO’s theme for 2026 and calls for stronger patient-centred action to protect youth and communities
The World Patients Alliance (WPA) welcomes the World Health Organization’s theme for World No Tobacco Day 2026: “Unmasking the appeal – countering nicotine and tobacco addiction.” This theme highlights how the tobacco and nicotine industry is adapting its strategy to recruit a new generation of users through new products such as e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches, and synthetic nicotine devices.
From the patient viewpoint:
• Patients living with chronic diseases know firsthand the burden that tobacco and nicotine related illness places on lives, families and health systems.
• The industry’s shift to concealed, supposedly “innovative” nicotine products threatens to reverse decades of progress in tobacco control.
• According to WHO, at least 40 million children aged 13-15 already use at least one tobacco product; among them 15 million use e-cigarettes, and in available countries children are on average nine times more likely than adults to vape.
WPA calls on governments, health systems, patient organisations and communities to centre patient voices and lived experience in efforts to:
1. Expose industry tactics: Support research and advocacy that unmask how packaging, flavours, marketing, and digital promotion target youth and new users.
2. Advance strong policy action: Encourage bans on flavours, restrictions on digital/online advertising and promotion, regulation of product design and packaging that increase appeal.
3. Expand access to cessation support: Ensure that people addicted to nicotine products have access to evidence based cessation services and support frameworks, including patient peer networks and community based programmes.
4. Promote equity and patient-centred advocacy: Tobacco and nicotine addiction disproportionately impacts marginalised populations. The patient movement urges equity driven strategies, rights based approaches and inclusive participation of people with lived experience in policy-making.
WPA sees this as a strategic moment to deepen collaboration between patient organisations and public health agencies, ensuring that tobacco control is not just a technical exercise, but a human rights and patient empowerment agenda.
“As patients and caregivers we have witnessed the damage caused by tobacco and nicotine addiction. This new campaign theme is an important opportunity. But we must go further, embedding patient voices in policy design, in monitoring industry behaviour, and in supporting recovery for those affected.”
-Andrew Spiegel, Chair, World Patients Alliance
WPA looks forward to working with WHO Member States, civil society, youth networks and patient groups to mark World No Tobacco Day 2026 and beyond. We call on all stakeholders to act now to ensure that the next generation is protected from nicotine addiction and its consequences.
