Nicotine without smoke: fighting the tobacco epidemic with harm reduction

Abstract

The rapid rise of smoke-free nicotine products, especially vaping, is the most disruptive influence on smoking in decades. These products are challenging not only smoked tobacco's stranglehold on the nicotine market but also the public health response to tobacco harm reduction, including by WHO. 1 Ghebreyesus TA Progress in beating the tobacco epidemic. Lancet. 2019; (published online July 26.)http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)31730-1 Summary Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (14) Google Scholar In October, 2018, 72 experts with no connections to the tobacco industry wrote to the WHO Director-General to argue that WHO should embrace innovation and more actively include tobacco harm reduction in its strategy to tackle the burden of smoking-related disease. 2 Abrams DB Adler M Agrawal S et al. Letter from seventy-two specialists in nicotine science, policy and practice. https://clivebates.com/documents/WHOCOP8LetterOctober2018.pdfDate: Oct 1, 2018 Date accessed: July 30, 2019 Google Scholar However, the WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 20193 WHOWHO report on the global tobacco epidemic. World Health Organization, Geneva2019http://www.who.int/tobacco/global_report/enDate: 2019 Date accessed: July 30, 2019 Google Scholar continues to underappreciate the potential of low-risk alternatives to smoking. Philip Morris International: money over morality?In the ongoing UnSmoke Your World campaign , Philip Morris International (PMI) calls for never-smokers to stay away from cigarettes, for smokers to quit, and for those smokers who do not quit to change to better alternatives. The development of those better alternatives, PMI suggests, is incumbent upon them and fulfils its commitment to help move the world towards a smoke-free future. PMI is now navigating consumers away from cigarettes and towards its own e-cigarettes and heat-not-burn products. Full-Text PDF