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“There have been many decades of research into the health effects of smoking, and we have known since at least the 1970s that repeated smoke inhalation is the leading cause of cancers, heart and lung disease,” said Professor David T Sweanor, Chairman of the Advisory Board, University of Ottawa Center for Health Law, Policy and Ethics.
Sweanor is a Canadian legal expert who believes that reducing harm caused by tobacco is one of the greatest advances in public health in history. It has been at the forefront of global efforts to reduce smoking for nearly four decades.
“Our bodies are simply not designed to inhale smoke. We see similar disease patterns in those who cook food on open fires with poor ventilation and in firefighters long-term exposure to smoke inhalation, “said Sweanor. He said it is the burning tar, and not nicotine, that contains carcinogens and toxins.
Sweanor made the clarification to highlight the benefits of smoke-free nicotine products, such as e-cigarettes, heatless tobacco products, and oral products such as Swedish snus, as less harmful alternatives to fuel cigarettes causing 20,000 deaths. daily throughout the world. Making these innovative nicotine products available to countries like the Philippines, he said, will help millions of smokers reduce their exposure to smoke and disease.
He said that contrary to popular belief, nicotine is not the substance that causes these diseases. “Nicotine itself is not the problem. The global health catastrophe we face is due to the way it presents itself. In summary, for anyone who wants to address the global cost of 20,000 daily lives lost due to cigarette smoking, we must remember just four words: “It’s the smoke, stupid,” said Sweanor.
Sweanor said that nicotine can be compared to caffeine because it is a psychoactive substance that is addictive and provides a variety of benefits to many users. By themselves, neither has significant health risks when used at normal dose levels. But if you get it through a toxic delivery system like smoking, it can cause major injury, “he said.
He said that recent technological developments have made it possible to consume nicotine without combustion, offering smokers less harmful alternatives to smoking. Unlike combustible tobacco, he said that e-cigarettes, non-heating tobacco products, and snus deliver nicotine without burning tobacco.
Various scientific studies have confirmed that these smoke-free nicotine products are significantly less harmful than traditional cigarettes. Public Health England and the Royal College of Physicians say e-cigarettes are likely to be at least 95 percent less harmful to humans than fuel tobacco.
Experts said these smoke-free alternatives also offer the same enjoyment as cigarettes with less risk of the dangerous toxins and carcinogens found in tobacco smoke. A clinical trial conducted in February 2019 by the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) found that the electronic cigarette was twice as effective as nicotine replacement treatments, such as patches and gum, in helping smokers to quit smoking.
Sweanor said these findings make smoke-free nicotine products the best way to quit smoking today. “Now we can get rid of cigarette smoking in the same way that many countries have gotten rid of various infectious diseases and taken consumers away from a wide range of other too dangerous products. We can use science, technology, and reason to write regulations that can end smoking, and thus address the 20,000 daily deaths worldwide that are caused by smoking. We can make the public health record no less significant than smallpox eradication, ”he said.
Sweanor cited the case of Japan, where a third of its cigarette market disappeared in just over three years after non-burnable tobacco products became available in the country.
“Product substitution works and seems to work better than any other strategy we’ve used to date to reduce smoking. We have also seen this impact in Sweden, Norway, Iceland and other countries, and with a variety of low-risk non-fuel alternatives to cigarettes, ”he said.
Sweanor said it is important for countries to provide smokers with a variety of viable options for quitting lethal cigarettes and to use policy measures such as differential pricing and marketing rules to accelerate the move away from deadly smoke inhalation.
Unfortunately, he said, governments are lagging far behind in science and technology. “They often don’t understand the huge risk differences between different nicotine products and inadvertently protect the cigarette business by viewing low-risk alternatives as a threat rather than an opportunity,” he said.
Sweanor said that instead of insisting on “quitting” strategies, governments should ensure that people who smoke cigarettes have truly viable options.
“The combined offer in terms of consumer needs and wants, and the information, availability and prices of low-risk alternatives should ensure that the safest option is an easy option,” he said.
“Viable alternatives to cigarettes can dramatically reduce cigarette smoking,” said Sweanor. “We can seize the opportunity that technology is now making available to end the cigarette epidemic.”
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