Heated tobacco products: another tobacco industry global strategy to slow progress in tobacco control

Stella Bialous and I just published “Heated tobacco products: another tobacco industry global strategy to slow progress in tobacco control” in Tobacco Control discussing how the latest round of heated tobacco products fits into and supports the tobacco companies’ political efforts to avoid meaningful regulation and protect their ability to sell all their products – including conventional cigarettes.

We see these products as a reaction to the effective reductions in tobacco use that are being implemented around the world, including those stimulated by the FCTC:

• After decades of increasing, global cigarette consumption is falling following implementation of the evidence-based policies in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
• The tobacco companies are promoting heated tobacco products (HTP) as harm reduction as part of their effort to be ‘part of the solution’ to the tobacco epidemic.
• The tobacco companies are using strategies that they have used for decades to fracture tobacco control and promote tobacco ‘harm reduction’ in an attempt to renormalise tobacco use.
• Tobacco companies are introducing HTP in markets with little or no regulatory or marketing restrains despite the fact that reduced risks claims are unproven and likely false.
• All FCTC regulatory measures should apply to HTP.
• Governments in countries where HTP are not available should keep them out and if allowed in the market at all should be under the strict regulatory framework defined by the FCTC.

Here is the abstract:

There has been a global decline in tobacco consumption that, if continued, will negatively impact the tobacco industry’s profits. This decline led the industry to invent and market new products, including heated tobacco products (HTP). HTP are an extension of the industry’s strategies to undermine government’s tobacco regulatory efforts as they are being promoted as part of the solution for the tobacco epidemic. Under the moniker of ‘harm reduction’, the tobacco companies are attempting to rehabilitate their reputation so they can more effectively influence governments to roll back existing tobacco control policies or create exemptions for their HTP. Rolling back tobacco control policies will make it easier for the companies to renormalise tobacco use to increase social acceptability for all their products. When regulations are absent or when loopholes exist in classifying HTP as a tobacco product (thus subject to all tobacco control regulations), the industry’s marketing of HTP is making these products more visible to the public and more accessible. Governments need to ensure that HTP are regulated as tobacco products or drugs and reject partnerships with the tobacco companies to promote ‘harm reduction’. The tobacco companies remain the vector of the tobacco-caused epidemic and cannot be part of the global tobacco control solution.

The full citation is:  Bialous SA, Glantz SA.  Heated tobacco products: another tobacco industry global strategy to slow progress in tobacco control. Tobacco Control Published Online First: 12 September 2018. doi: 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2018-054340.  It is available for free here.