Bringing down the percentage of smokers, but also taking advantage of the technological evolution that allows us to offer consumers alternatives that are much less risky for health. This is what part of the scientific world is clamoring for SCHEER Committee (Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks), which in April will deliver a final report to the EU Commission on the policies to be adopted in the fight against tobacco consumption. The appointment is not irrelevant, because the future policies of the countries of the Union will be decided on the basis of the considerations of the committee, which will have to resolve the usual dilemma: it is more correct to aim only at one “generation zero tobacco”, as currently envisaged by the EU plan which aims to reduce the percentage of smokers from 25% (22% in Italy) to 5% in 2040, or is it also useful to include the principle of harm reduction, encouraging the diffusion of alternative products such as e-cigarettes or heated tobacco devices?
At the moment the preliminary report of the SCHEER Committee, which follows the Beating Cancer Plan, seems inclined to the first hypothesis and substantially tends to equate traditional cigarettes and innovative products, effectively ignoring the scientific evidence of over 30 independent studies and the opinions of over 10 regulatory bodies all over the world, including the US Food and Drug Administration and the British Public Health England. In particular, the British institute, which has been advocating for years the adoption of electronic cigarettes as a fundamental tool for the fight against conventional smoking, argues that e-cigarettes are 95% less harmful than smoking. And most importantly, they help smokers quit: According to the PHE, more than 50.000 smokers in England who would otherwise continue to smoke cigarettes quit smoking each year in England with the help of e-cigarettes. A very high number, if we consider that in 2019 there were almost 75.000 deaths from smoking-related diseases. In 2020 in England, e-cigarettes continued to represent the most popular tool among smokers trying to quit: 27,2%.
Even the US federal agency FDA, the body responsible among other things for the regulation of drugs and tobacco products in the United States, among the most authoritative public health bodies in the world and protagonist of the protocols for the authorization of vaccines for COVID -19, recognizes the principle of harm reduction. Those who continue not to do so are Europe, including Italy. In our country, innovative products are permitted and regulated, but the Italian health authorities still do so today do not recognize the opportunity to integrate the principle of harm reduction with traditional cessation and prevention policies. Indeed, recently the Ministry of Health has criticized the openness to debate expressed by some scientific societies on the matter, reiterating the "quit or die" strategy as "the only one that can be pursued, from a public health perspective". There is therefore no other way, according to our institutions than "total cessation of smoking and the consumption of other tobacco products".
And yet, it is precisely in Italy that the market is demonstrating the exact opposite. Already previously in Japan the large-scale penetration of products without combustion had contributed significantly to a significant drop in the sale of cigarettes (today more than one smoker in four does not smoke normal cigarettes but products with lower risk). In our country however, in the last two years, following the introduction of alternative products such as electronic cigarettes (but not only) there has been a unprecedented decline in cigarette consumption traditional: -6,8% since 2017. Not only that: the good news, for the state coffers, is that thanks to the growth of alternative products, there has not been a corresponding drop in tax revenue. So many people are abandoning cigarettes and switching to other products, which still allow the market to survive and the state to have the revenue it expects to have.
neither the Covid emergency has reversed this trend: perhaps someone, out of boredom from staying indoors, could have thought of starting (or resuming) smoking, and instead attention to health prevailed: according to data provided by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità , 600 thousand people left their cigarettes, while users of electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco have increased (albeit slightly, by 1% and 0,3%).
