Jeff Stier

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Jeff Stier is a senior fellow of the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), an American right-wing think tank.

Background

Stier is a vocal advocate of tobacco harm reduction. This is an approach to reducing the harm caused by tobacco, by encouraging cigarette smokers to switch to alternative, less harmful sources of nicotine and tobacco, even if this may involve continued use of nicotine and/or tobacco.

Relationship with the Tobacco Industry

Part-Funded by Tobacco Companies

Stier’s employer, the NCPPR, has a history of receiving tobacco company funding and collaborating with the tobacco industry. For details go to National Center for Public Policy Research.
In August 2011, Stier disclosed to British newspaper The Guardian that NCPPR received “less than 1% of its revenue” from corporate sources, including tobacco companies. 1

Speaker at Tobacco Industry Events

Stier was a speaker at the annual tobacco industry event TabExpo 2011 in Prague.2
Stier has also been a regular speaker at the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum, an annual tobacco industry event previously known as the Global Tobacco Networking Forum.34567
For more detail on the other speakers at the events, go to :

Opposing Tobacco Control Legislation

Stier has publicly opposed stronger regulations of potentially reduced risk tobacco and nicotine products, and has tried to discredit health campaigners that do not share his views, calling them “prohibitionists”.
In a news article in 2016 Stier criticised the Food and Drug Administration’s approach to regulating e-cigarettes, calling it “bad policy”.8 Discrediting support for the FDA’s policy, Stier hit out at one of its supporter’s, the American Lung Association, accusing the Association of conflict of interest due to it being in receipt of pharmaceutical industry funding. Stier did not disclose his connections to the tobacco industry in the article.
In August 2011, Stier published an article in The Guardian criticising the delay in the European Union’s (EU) revision of the Tobacco Products Directive, and challenging its ban on the sales of snus and tobacco dissolvables, claiming that “This is no way for governments to help people give up smoking”. For background on this EU legislation, visit our page on the EU snus ban.

Applauding Tobacco Industry Legal Challenge

On 5 July 2016, Stier tweeted in response to tobacco company Swedish Match’s legal challenge of the EU snus ban in a UK court: “Very, very pleased to see Swedish Match fighting back”.9

Affiliation

In January 2018, Stier joined the Consumer Choice Center (CCC) as a Senior Fellow.10 The CCC is an American consumer rights organisation that lobbies for deregulation in policy areas like food and agriculture, sugar tax, soda tax, food labelling, health care and harm reduction, trade initiatives such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP), transportation and aviation.11

TobaccoTactics Resources

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References

  1. ↑J. Stier, Do snus and e-cigarettes need a health warning? The Guardian, 18 August 2011, accessed January 2018
  2. ↑Tobacco Reporter, TR Staff Report, Strong Line Up, July 2011, accessed October 2011
  3. ↑GTNF ANTWERP 2012: Look who is talking and what they are talking about, GTNF 2012 website, accessed 20 February 2012
  4. ↑Global Tobacco Networking Forum, Global Tobacco Networking Forum website, accessed September 2013
  5. ↑GTNF 2014:The Greenbrier. Agenda, GTNF 2014, accessed February 2017
  6. ↑Look Who’s Talking. GTNF 2015: Voices from ‘The Square’, GTNF 2015, accessed February 2017
  7. ↑Managing Transformation. Look Who’s Talking 2016. Perspectives: Our 2016 speakers and panelists, GTNF 2016, accessed February 2017
  8. ↑E. Lipton, A Lobbyist Wrote the Bill. Will the Tobacco Industry Win Its E-Cigarette Fight?, “The New York Times”, 2 September 2016, accessed February 2017
  9. ↑J. Stier (@JeffaStier), Tweet: “Very very pleased to see Swedish Match fighting back”, Twitter, 5 July 2016, 12:21 PM.
  10. ↑Tobacco Reporter, Stier joins consumer body, 9 January 2018, accessed January 2018
  11. ↑Consumer Choice Center (CCC), undated, accessed January 2018

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