Tobacco harm reduction: how rational public policy could transform a pandemic.
Nicotine, at the dosage levels smokers seek, is a relatively innocuous drug commonly delivered by a highly harmful device, cigarette smoke. An intensifying pandemic of disease caused or exacerbated by smoking demands more effective policy responses than the current one: demanding that nicotine users abstain. A pragmatic response to the smoking problem is blocked by moralistic campaigns masquerading as public health, by divisions within the community of opponents to present policy, and by the public-health professions antipathy to any tobacco-control endeavours other than smoking cessation. Yet, numerous alternative systems for nicotine delivery exist, many of them far safer than smoking. A pragmatic, public-health approach to tobacco control would recognize a continuum of risk and encourage nicotine users to move themselves down the risk spectrum by choosing safer alternatives to smoking--without demanding abstinence.
Sweanor
David
D
Alcabes
Philip
P
Drucker
Ernest
E
D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D040261:Harm Reduction / Q000941:ethics; D006801:Humans; D009538:Nicotine / Q000009:adverse effects; D011050:Policy Making; D011634:Public Health; D012307:Risk Factors; D019460:Tobacco Industry / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution / Q000009:adverse effects; D014029:Tobacco Use Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D014030:Tobacco, Smokeless
D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution; D009538:Nicotine