Scott Ballin
Scott D. Ballin has worked tirelessly for over four decades as a health policy consultant, to bring Government regulatory agencies, National health organizations, Public Health experts and industry stakeholders to the table for rational discussion about tobacco harm reduction. He is committed to this approach as the best way to enable government agencies to make informed policy decisions about tobacco use. While he believes it is critical to keep youth and underage users away from any tobacco or nicotine product, it is equally critical to maintain adult access to safer nicotine delivery products such as properly regulated and standardized e-cigarettes, Swedish snus, tobacco-free nicotine pouches and other non-combustible forms and to keep viable innovations in the marketplace. Scott has worked on a spectrum of tobacco and nicotine issues ranging from labeling reforms on cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation of tobacco, excise taxes, clean indoor air laws and tobacco agriculture reforms. For more than 10 years he served as the American Heart Association’s vice president and legislative counsel, as well as a steering committee member and two-time chairman of the Coalition on Smoking or Health, which was the first truly active national coalition in the tobacco control movement. Ballin served on the steering committee of the Alliance for Health Economic and Agriculture Development (AHEAD), an organization formed to bring parties together to work for the enactment of recommendations contained in a presidential report, Tobacco at a Crossroads. In recent years he has worked as an advisor to the University of Virginia on a series of discussions—The Morven Dialogues—on tobacco, nicotine and harm reduction, and he also served as a consultant and advisor to the Food and Drug Law Institute’s tobacco conferences in 2016 and 2017.
