Tobacco harm reduction: Hope in the US, despair in Europe

In my commentary, “The Electronic Future of Cigarettes,” published last week in The Atlantic,  I described “a radical transformation in the way our society uses tobacco…as tobacco consumers switch to smoke-free products like smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes.”  One of my longstanding goals has been to correct decades of misinformation about nicotine and tobacco, in order to introduce safer smoke-free products to millions of smokers.

 

The Atlantic article conveys a hopeful message, but optimism in the United States is offset by depressing events in Europe.  The British government two weeks ago decided to regulate e-cigarettes as medicines, a move that will likely deter wider e-cig adoption by smokers.  The European Union continues to move forward with its tobacco directive, which denies vastly safer snus to all but Swedish smokers and places further restrictions on e-cigarettes.

 

A blistering public health critique of the European Commission, the European Council and the Irish Presidency, the World Health Organization, the European public health lobby and various governmental health organizations is offered by Clive Bates in this recent web post.