“Can Cigarette Alternatives Deliver a Safer Fix?” [EHP]

[Tom09]

An article on tobacco harm reduction and cigarette alternatives (smokeless, dissolvable, and e-cig):

Washam C 2011. Can Cigarette Alternatives Deliver a Safer Fix? Environ Health Perspect 119:a286-a287.
(01 July 2011, pdf)

tobacco harm reduction—encouraging the use of cigarette alternatives as a way to reduce the public health impact of smoking—is the subject of fierce debate in the public health community.1,2 Some believe such alternatives perpetuate nicotine addiction in smokers and may even be manufactured and marketed specifically to keep smokers smoking.3 “The goal should be relief from addiction to nicotine, not long-term maintenance,” says Norman Edelman, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association.
[...]

 

[yvilla]

Thanks Tom.

Your link is broken, so here it is again: Environmental Health Perspectives: Can Cigarette Alternatives Deliver a Safer Fix?

 

[Linden]

Quite a good report, compared to most I read.

 

[Vocalek]

I looked up the reference for this...

An earlier study indicated teenage boys who used smokeless tobacco were three times as likely as nonusers to be smoking cigarettes four years later.16 “If I wanted to get large numbers of people addicted to nicotine,” Winickoff says, “I would probably promote these products.”

16. Tomar SL. Is use of smokeless tobacco a risk factor for cigarette smoking? The U.S. experience. Nicotine Tob Res 5(4):561–569. 2003. doi:10.1080/1462220031000118667

Is use of smokeless tobacco a risk factor for ciga... [Nicotine Tob Res. 2003] - PubMed result

...and found that the study was conducted in 1986. I have to wonder at that point in time, when government web sites carried messages such as the one below, whether the kids who started out on smokeless didn't believe that they were saving themselves from worse health risks by switching to smoking.

"Is smokeless tobacco safer than cigarettes? NO WAY!"

BioMed Central | Full text | You might as well smoke; the misleading and harmful public message about smokeless tobacco