Sweden is on the verge of becoming the only smoke-free EU country: by the end of the year, less than 5% of the population is expected to smoke.
The European plan to fight against cancer sets the same goal, but for 2040. The WHO intermediate target, on the other hand, envisages by 2025 a 30% reduction in tobacco consumption compared to 2010, equivalent to a smoking rate equal to about 20% of the EU population. Swedish smokers have replaced cigarettes with alternatives that satisfy their craving for nicotine, such as devices that heat tobacco. In short, Stockholm has adopted a harm reduction strategy that goes in the opposite direction to that towards which the WHO tends, which on the contrary wants to equate cigarettes with alternative products without combustion from a regulatory point of view.
Electronic cigarettes “help people stop smoking traditional ones”: the study of the head physician
The England case
Even England is betting on e-cigarettes. Public Health England has stated that e-cigarettes are 95% less harmful than traditional cigarettes. And UK Health Secretary Neil O’Brien plans to give away vape starter kits for free as part of a government “swap to stop” program that will see the UK become completely smoke-free by 2030. The United States is one of the countries that have not signed up to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. In the USA, the percentage of smokers rose from 20.9% in 2005 to 11.5% in 2021. The Food and Drug Administration has envisaged the possibility of marketing alternative products to traditional cigarettes as “modified risk tobacco products”. Not even New Zealand has signed the Framework Convention. In return, the Auckland government plans to make the country completely smoke-free by 2025. To achieve this goal, the New Zealand parliament has recognized the electronic cigarette as a useful tool to help smokers quit. In all, more than ten international regulatory bodies, including the national public health institutes of the Netherlands and Japan, consider products without combustion an effective weapon in the fight against smoking.
© breaking latest news
© breaking latest news