Calls for Global Action to Address Risks of Traditional Smoking by Promoting Smoke-free Products

By Eman Hamed

Sweden, Japan, and Britain support less harmful products
Professor of “Physical Chemistry”: e-cigarettes and heated tobacco are less harmful alternatives to traditional smoking
Calls have recently increased for the need of global action to address smoking as a serious global health problem, especially in light of the proven scientific evidence on the importance of smoke-free products as a less harmful alternative compared to traditional cigarettes, considering them an opportunity for adult smokers who do not wish to quit smoking.
Angel Gonzalez Ureña, Professor of Physical Chemistry, said that traditionally smoking tobacco by burning cigarettes is very harmful to health as it contains large amounts of harmful chemicals that cause many diseases, including cancer. He explained that when tobacco burns, the temperature reaches 900-950 degrees Celsius; while in the case of heated tobacco or e-cigarettes, the temperature does not generally exceed 320-350 degrees Celsius; leading to fewer chemical and thermal reactions, which in turn reduces many harmful and carcinogenic chemicals found in traditional tobacco products.
Ureña added that the best option is always to quit smoking completely, especially since nicotine can lead to addiction. However, products such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products can be less harmful alternatives to traditional cigarettes. Scientific evidence states that the harmful substances produced by burning tobacco in traditional cigarettes are reduced by 94% to 96% when switching to heated tobacco or e-cigarettes, where the high levels of harmful chemicals in cigarette smoke are considered the main reason for smoking-related diseases. When a cigarette is lit, it produces smoke that contains 6,000 harmful chemicals.
In the same context, Sweden, Japan, and the United Kingdom, among other countries that support the concept of tobacco harm reduction after adopting the measures and regulations that govern the circulation of less harmful tobacco products. Meanwhile, other countries are still neglecting innovative solutions to reduce the risks of traditional smoking, such as Mexico, which lacks the evaluation of these new solutions despite its interest in regulating and combating smoking. Spain also attempts to oversize these alternative products by not accepting the scientific evidence of their lower toxicity despite the research findings by the Complutense University and the Autonomous University of Madrid that showed the total number of components present in aerosols from both heated tobacco and e-cigarettes is significantly lower than that found in conventional tobacco smoke.
There are 4 types of smoke-free alternative products, the first of which is heated tobacco products, which rely on heating tobacco coils only instead of burning them, and provide the body with the desired nicotine. Second, the e-cigarettes that rely on vaporizing a liquid to which a nicotine solution is added to form a spray with different flavors. In addition to chewing tobacco products, which also contain nicotine and are designed for use by chewing, and finally nicotine pouches, that are also used by mouth, but do not contain tobacco. All of these products do not produce smoke or ash as they do not rely on burning at all. It is important to emphasize that these products are not completely risk-free, but they offer adult smokers a better option than continuing to smoke traditionally according to proven scientific studies.
It is worth noting that the latest scientific studies have proven that a person would have to be surrounded by a hundred people who use e-cigarettes, to receive the same nicotine exposure as that coming from a single conventional cigarette smoker, with consideration that these studies were conducted in closed areas, not in open or semi-open areas, such as parks or playgrounds, etc.