Dr. Farooq Ali Khan
JAPAN, a country that once had one of the highest smoking rates in the world, is showing one of the biggest declines in its smokers’ rate per capita in the last two decades.
From 25.3% of adults actively smoking in 2008, the numbers came down to 17.9% within the span of only ten years. What is prompting such an accelerated decline in the number of smokers in a country that was once considered a smoker’s paradise?
Researchers from the American Cancer Society have attributed these significant reductions in smoking rates in Japan to the availability of non-combustible alternatives in the market.
Cigarette sales in Japan were already declining at a slow but steady pace between 2011 and 2015. However, following the introduction of smokeless alternatives to combustible cigarettes into the marketplace, the pace of decline in cigarette sales has accelerated markedly – by about 5 times. Similar findings were reported by a 2020 study that appeared in the Tobacco Control journal.
Countries like the US, UK, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland are also showing a significant drop in their cigarette sales over recent years – and the common element in all cases has been adult smokers being able to access less harmful, non-combustible alternatives.
Non-combustible alternatives are referred to as products that do not burn tobacco and thus, do not produce smoke, only delivering nicotine through a less harmful method.
Nicotine, while not risk-free, is not the real culprit behind the development of smoking related diseases. It is just one of the reasons, in addition to the force of habit, ritual, and taste, why smokers smoke as it stimulates pleasure in smokers’ brains.
When the process of burning and the subsequent release of toxic smoke is eliminated, the health risks associated with a cigarette are automatically reduced since almost all smoking-related diseases arise from the toxins present in cigarette smoke.
Thus, non-combustible alternatives work on delivering smokers their nicotine fix without the other harmful effects of cigarettes. According to Public Health England, these products are 95% less harmful than combustible cigarettes and carry the potential to reduce the burden of smoking from public health.
However, despite all this evidence and successful case studies from around the world, Pakistan still seems to be struggling with its black-and-white approach to controlling the smoking rate in the country. What we really need now is a pragmatic approach. Of course, people who don’t smoke should never start smoking and people who smoke should stop.
But given the fact that there will always be a segment of people who will continue to choose to smoke, the best approach for them would be to help them at least switch to a less harmful alternative as opposed to leaving them with no other option than continued smoking. Only acceptance of science and innovation can help us translate our vision of a healthy Pakistan into reality.
