TabExpo at London's ExCel
I visited TabExpo yesterday.
It's a tobacco trade exhibition organised every four years by the same people who host the annual GTNF conference.
Alongside the four-day exhibition there was a two-day 'Congress' that featured 20 speakers discussing a variety of issues.
This year the speakers included several people who are GTNF regulars – Patrick Basham (Democracy Institute), Mark Littlewood (Institute of Economic Affairs) and Clive Bates, the former director of ASH who is now an enthusiastic advocate of e-cigarettes.
Ironically, given Clive's involvement and the high profile given to harm reduction products at both GTNF and TabExpo, the tobacco control lobby - including ASH and Cancer Research - has spent much of the week tweeting disparaging comments about the tobacco industry using the hashtags #tabexpo2015 and #tabexposed.
All rather childish. Any sensible person interested in harm reduction should understand the benefits of engaging with the tobacco industry. But no, the likes of ASH prefer to hurl insults from afar, even when one of their own is participating.
Anyway the venue for this year's TabExpo, which was last held in Prague in 2011, and before that Geneva, Vienna, Barcelona and Paris, was the ExCel centre in London's Docklands.
It was my first visit to the ExCel and I'm not sure how to describe the general surroundings. An apocalyptic industrial wasteland? A bit harsh perhaps because it's not that bad. There is some residential housing and a short walk from the main entrance to the ExCel was a 4-star floating hotel.
The developers are making an effort to renovate one or two older warehouses alongside the modern buildings but it hasn't quite come together yet. It reminds me of Canary Wharf 15 or 20 years ago but without the high rise buildings that give E14 its unique feel.
The ExCel is big but unlike the far larger Millennium Dome it doesn't have a 16,000 seat auditorium or an impressive choice of bars, cafes and restaurants. It is what it is, a modern but characterless exhibition and conference centre.
It goes without saying that within TabExpo I didn't see a single image of anyone smoking. With its red carpets, fresh white walls, state of the art exhibition stands and funky furniture, this was a universe away from smoke-filled rooms and nicotine-stained walls.
There was, I was told, a significant increase in exhibitors promoting e-cigarette related equipment and other harm reduction technology. Then again, leaf suppliers were well represented too.
Some things hadn't changed and it was interesting that the most popular breakout areas were the temporary bars that had been set up under cover outside, overlooking the river, allowing delegates to smoke, vape and drink.
Socially the big event of TabExpo 2015 was the gala dinner on Wednesday in the Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. I would have liked to go but I had other commitments. I therefore missed the guest speaker, Ian Paisley MP, who I'm told was very funny.
Instead I gave a short presentation at the TabExpo Congress yesterday entitled 'Rights and responsibilities: why the consumer must come first'.
The gist of it was that smoking is not (in my opinion) a human right but consumers who pay billions of pounds in tax when purchasing a legal product must have some rights and the tobacco companies have a responsibility to support customers who choose to smoke and don't want to quit.
Not for the first time I concluded a presentation at a tobacco industry convention with a slideshow. Every image - there were about 30 in all - featured a portrait of someone smoking.
The underlying message is: embrace e-cigarettes and other harm reduction products but these are your core customers and they need your support.