By: Chris Bostic, ASH Policy Director
Some rays of light in a cloudy world:
“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.”
These lines are a personal mantra and emotional survival tool. The world seems to be unraveling, and there are things happening that are both entirely unacceptable and (mostly) outside my control. I’m privileged and thankful to have a job where I can (hopefully) make a positive contribution, at least in my little corner. It allows me to avoid despondency.
This has not been a normal year, and in the aggregate it can’t be called a good year. Even in my field, anti-tobacco policy, it would be easy to paint a dark picture. The very concept of tobacco control has been turned inside-out in the U.S., at least at the federal level. CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, and the centuries of combined experience and wisdom its staff brought to the fight, is gone, and with it funding for state programs. The White House is run by a Chief of Staff who is a former tobacco industry lobbyist. The FDA Center for Tobacco Product’s main function seems to be green-lighting new nicotine products to addict America’s youth. Funding for research on tobacco has been slashed.
And yet, if for a moment we can filter out everything else, tobacco endgame has seen a remarkable year, and promises to only get better in 2026.
The U.S. added 12 jurisdictions to the endgame tally, bringing the total to 30. The Maldives became the first nation and the first lower- or middle-income jurisdiction to implement an endgame policy. The population living under an endgame umbrella has topped 1.5 million, but that number will seem a trifle when the United Kingdom and South Australia pass their endgame bills, hopefully early in the new year.
Digging a bit deeper, the two California cities’ – Tiburon and Ross – recent sales bans have restarted momentum after the movement started by Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach was crushed by COVID five years ago. The coalition in Marin County, spearheaded by a remarkable youth alliance, is just getting started, and there are cities in play in other California counties as well. Nearly every day, I hear from someone asking how they can get started on endgame where they live.
Speaking of Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach, their laws have been in place long enough that we are starting to get data (not yet published) on their impact. The data is very promising and invalidates industry predictions of Armageddon.
On the opposite coast, ten more towns in Massachusetts passed Nicotine-Free Generation bills, nearly doubling the total to 21. As in Marin, all the credit goes to a small group of passionate volunteers, including some high school students that make me feel lazy by comparison.
There’s great optimism at the global level as well. In November, the 11th Conference of the Parties of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control adopted three decisions that represent an existential threat to the tobacco industry. More important than the specific language of the decisions is the altered paradigm behind it – most Parties to the treaty no longer speak in terms of “controlling” the tobacco epidemic, but in eliminating it. During the opening plenary, the Maldives challenged the rest of the world to follow them down the endgame path, garnering an enthusiastic ovation not just from civil society but from national delegations. It was unprecedented.
Earlier in November, the first meeting of the European Union’s JA-SAFE (Joint Action for Smoke and Aerosol-Free Environments) convened in Athens. One of the nine policy tracks up for consideration – for the first time – was endgame, and 23 nations opted in. It is difficult to overstate how remarkable this is. Even two years ago, it would have been inconceivable.
ASH also held its first global endgame summit in Dublin and the second U.S. summit in Chicago (many thanks to our sponsors!). These events, which would have required no more than a small conference room five years ago, were standing room only, and my only regret was being forced to turn people away. At the first full World Conference on Tobacco Control since 2018 – also in Dublin – some colleagues were chagrined that their endgame abstracts were not accepted. But it was not for lack of interest: So many endgame abstracts were submitted that the Committee simply couldn’t fit them all in. As it was, endgame permeated every conversation. Tobacco endgame was a lonely world when ASH launched Project Sunset in 2018. No longer.
As I reflect on 2025 and look forward to 2026, I want to express my appreciation for the people I am privileged to work with, both inside and outside ASH. It would be impossible to name them all and I won’t risk leaving someone out, but there is no group of people more focused, dedicated and thoughtful. The tobacco industry may have money and power (not to mention ruthlessness), but they are outmatched, and their fate is sealed.