Italy's environmental ministry, Alessandra Moretti, said scientists must know that new alternative tobacco and nicotine products are harmful. However, some still question whether applying this precautionary-principle approach would benefit heavy smokers who are unable to quit.

EU lawmaker Moretti (Partito Democratico – S&D) has strongly defended the EU's application of the precautionary principle, arguing that it should prevail in any public policy decision.

This principle means that a policy should be abandoned if it is likely to cause harm, and its safety cannot be supported by sufficient scientific evidence; essentially, new tobacco and nicotine products are considered harmful unless proven otherwise product.

"If we don't know for sure the long-term effects, we can't be sure that they are harmless," she told EURACTIV Italy.

"So far, we are convinced that they are harmful tools. We will have medium and long-term effects in the short term, and unfortunately, I fear that we will have scientific evidence that they are harmful to health," Moretti warned.

Newer products, such as heated tobacco, e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches or snuff, have emerged as an alternative to traditional smoking, which kills 700,000 people in Europe every year.

Proponents of such products say they are far less harmful than conventional cigarettes, while opponents say they are still harmful, and most importantly, given that they have only recently entered the market, we do not know how long-term they will be. influences.

Several member states, such as France and Germany, have recently come forward to prevent - from a tax or product regulation perspective - the proliferation of these products.

Moretti explained that many of the chemicals inhaled through these instruments penetrate all organs.

"For example, recent research has found a possible association with bladder cancer," she added.

Moretti also highlighted the effects of nicotine, such as strong addiction, increased risk of papillomavirus, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.

"We know that many of these tools use more nicotine than traditional cigarettes. So it would be a good thing if the products were only marketed as being safe in the short and long term."

Likewise, Cornel Radu-Loghin, public health advocate for the European Network on Smoking and Tobacco Prevention (ENSP), told EURACTIV that no one can guarantee that these new products will be less harmful.

"We might see effects in 5, 10, or 20 years, and those effects will be more harmful, who knows?" he noted.

When it comes to heavy smokers who are unable to quit, Radu-Loghin said public health organizations would never recommend these products as a substitute, but explained that any medical professional can help in what they think is best for the smoker Smokers quit smoking.

Dr. Konstantinos Farsalinos, a researcher at Onassis Cardiac Surgery in Greece, took a different view, saying that both the European Union and the World Health Organization (WHO) had mistakenly identified nicotine as the culprit, rather than smoking itself.

"For decades, nicotine has been demonized because the only way to get nicotine is through smoking, and we now know that nicotine's contribution to the harm caused by smoking is relatively insignificant," he explained.

Farsalinos said the EU's caution discouraged smokers from using new products and eventually quitting.

Fassalinos said: "It gave them the wrong impression that they were all the same, which was wrong information. It added that both the EU and WHO have taken a critical approach in conducting scientific research on the matter.

When asked how the tobacco industry could convince anyone with these arguments, given its past claims that light cigarettes are less harmful than regular cigarettes, he replied: "Obviously you wouldn't trust the tobacco industry.

"These are not products invented by the tobacco industry, when the products first appeared on the market, the tobacco industry made fun of them, and then they all stepped in," he said.

The European Commission said any scientific assessment of new and emerging nicotine and tobacco products would be carefully considered.

"As a minimum, these should follow relevant recommendations from the World Health Organization, such as relying only on independent data sources or analysing the risks of dual use with traditional tobacco products," an EU official told EURACTIV.

The official added: "WHO has highlighted the challenges of scientific assessment of these products (for example, wide variability in emissions, interaction of devices with contents, and specific characteristics that lead to different levels of nicotine and toxicants), which should be fully taken into account. these challenges.

For Frederic de Wilde, president of Philip Morris International Tobacco (PMI) in the European Union, the best option any smoker can make is to quit, and many have done so.

But smokers who shouldn't quit shouldn't be left behind.

“However, most smokers continue to use one of the most harmful ways to consume nicotine – cigarettes. In the EU alone, around 85 million people, or 19% of the population, still smoke,” de Wilde told EURACTIV.

The second best option, he said, is to switch to non-combustible, reduced-risk tobacco or nicotine products that are backed by scientific evidence.

"It is agreed that the main cause of smoking-related illnesses is that of the approximately one hundred harmful compounds found in cigarette smoke, most of which are produced by combustion, and that nicotine, while addictive and not without risks, does not cause these illnesses The main reason.” He pointed out,

On the other hand, he explained, non-combustible nicotine products such as pouches, snuff, e-cigarettes or heated tobacco are not without risks, but they are a better alternative to cigarettes for those who do not quit.

"Our extensive scientific research on heated tobacco products clearly shows that it is a lower risk alternative to cigarettes," he stressed.

De Wilde said the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Belgian High Commission for Health, the German Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), the Netherlands Institute for Health and the Environment (RIVM), the Royal College of Physicians and others have also come up with similar findings. conclusion.

"The Belgian High Council of Health, despite having reached similar conclusions to ours as a result of a scientific review of our heated tobacco products, decided that the same regulatory framework as for cigarettes should apply to heated tobacco," he said.

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