"In an era of ever accelerating progress and increasingly avant-garde technological innovations, new approaches are emerging based on potentially safer alternatives to cigarettes for smokers who for various reasons cannot quit. This category of smokers must not be abandoned by politics. on tobacco control. When you can't stop smoking, switching to less dangerous products has a positive effect on the health of many smokers. "
This is the heart of the founding manifesto of Scohre, the first international company of over 55 experts in the sector officially formed today at the end of the 3rd International Summit on Harm Reduction.
According to experts, smoking control strategies should be more inclusive of the concept of harm reduction, which includes the use of the full spectrum of products, from e-cigarettes to devices that heat tobacco without burning it, now on the market.
"In the case of cigarettes - underlined during the summit David Sweanor, of the University of Ottawa -, we have known for decades that smoking is deadly, and that people smoke from nicotine but die from smoking. From this derives a potential for people looking for nicotine to turn to other, less dangerous products. The technology exists, and there are examples, such as in Norway, Iceland and Japan, where the transition to non-combustible products has already occurred. "
Among the countries that are implementing new laws in order to maximize the potential of these new devices for smokers is Greece, which has just passed new legislation that allows communication on the risk reduction of smokers, with statements scientifically proven.
The provision provides for an authorization process to evaluate the products and post-marketing surveillance, on the model carried out by the US drug agency Fda, which has recently authorized the marketing of Philip Morris's Iqos Heated Tobacco Product and snus, the chewable tobacco, such as 'modified risk tobacco products'.
The spread of snus in northern European countries, for example in Sweden, has the lowest rates of smoking-related diseases (such as lung and oral cancer) and smoking rates of about 5% of the total population, emerged during the summit.
As for Italy, the data recently published by the Customs Agency seem to confirm the tendency for our country to abandon the 'blondes'.
"Over the last 4 years, the overall demand for tobacco has decreased by about 2.4 million kg (-3.05 per cent compared to the 2016 figure) - we read -, mainly due to the reduction in cigarette consumption (-10.28 per cent, by volume, from 2016). Part of this loss may be due to a substitution effect - in order of importance - of smokeless inhalation tobaccos, cigarillos and cut tobacco ".
(HANDLE).