The new GSTHR report documents the search for safer ways to use nicotine, beset with false starts, and charts the history of tobacco harm reduction. Emergence of new safer nicotine products has caused substantial disruption to nicotine use, public health and tobacco control institutions, and the traditional tobacco industry. Mistrust and ideological opposition is hampering widespread adoption of a strategy that could help 1.1 billion adult smokers failed by existing tobacco control interventions.

The latest GSTHR Briefing Paper argues that tobacco harm reduction is supported by international human rights law. The paper recommends that tobacco harm reduction should be promoted as a health rights issue by the advocacy organisations that represent nicotine users.

The second in our GSTHR series which documents the development of tobacco harm reduction and use, availability and regulatory responses to safer nicotine products around the world, and comes two years after No Fire, No Smoke, our first GSTHR report (2018).

The latest report from K∙A∙C’s Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction (GSTHR) argues that “tobacco control policy is frozen in time” while “innovative non-combustible nicotine technology and supporting evidence have moved forwards”. The status quo keeps adult smokers smoking rather than switching to safer nicotine, favouring the tobacco industry.