Experts support differentiated regulations for cigarettes, novel products

Experts support differentiated regulations for cigarettes, novel products

MANILA, Philippines — Cigarettes and novel nicotine products should have different sets of regulations, public health experts urge, stressing that smoke-free alternatives are far less harmful and could help address the global smoking problem.

Prof. David Sweanor, chair of the advisory board of the Center for Health Law, Policy and Ethics at the University of Ottawa, said regulations on vapes, heated tobacco, oral nicotine products, and other smoke-free alternatives shouldn’t be as strict as those for conventional tobacco.

This is because the annual reviews by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities in the UK, have consistently shown that novel tobacco products carry significantly lower risks than smoking.

Sweanor, the first lawyer in the world to work full-time on policy measures to reduce the harm from cigarette smoking, said if the same stringent regulations are imposed on novel products, far fewer people can be expected to attempt to switch away from cigarettes.

“Such regulations give the incumbent deadly products a marketplace advantage and reinforce misinformation about cigarettes being no more hazardous than smoke-free alternatives,” he said.

Experts pointed out that it’s the smoke from burning tobacco, not nicotine, that causes major health problems linked to cigarettes. By switching to smoke-free alternatives like heated tobacco, vape or oral nicotine products, the harm is significantly reduced, they said.

“It is the inhalation of smoke that is causing a global pandemic, and smoke-free alternatives can replace cigarettes. Empowering and facilitating the move to smoke-free products for people who smoke cigarettes would lead to one of the greatest advances in the history of global public health,” Sweanor said.

Dr. Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, senior research fellow in Health Behaviors at University of Oxford, agreed that while nicotine is addictive, it doesn’t cause the harm from smoking. “Evidence shows e-cigarettes with nicotine can help people quit smoking,

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