The looming challenge of the mixed marketplace for tobacco products

摘要

Throughout the world, as use of manufactured cigarettes has dropped, the tobacco industry has taken steps to diversify its product offerings with the overall goal of assuring a steady market of nicotine-addicted people. In the United States, the industry has a long history of developing and testing alternative products that deliver nicotine, but can be marketed as having possibly lesser risk than conventional cigarettes. 'Premiere', developed and test-marketed by Philip Morris is an early example - a product that did not directly combust tobacco so that side-stream smoke emissions were reduced. More recently, other similar products have been developed and the industry is moving aggressively to bring snus, the oral moist product from Sweden into the marketplace as well. The availability of multiple tobacco products complicates tobacco control as oral products offer an alternative to cigarettes for maintained nicotine dosing in environments where smoking is not allowed and taxation strategies need to be developed with consideration of the range of products available. Additionally, a divisive debate around 'harm reduction' has arisen and laboratory-testing strategies for predicting the potential risks of new products with certainty are still undeveloped.