Burning Issues: The Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction 2020

Burning Issues: The Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction 2020 is the second in our biennial GSTHR series which documents the development of tobacco harm reduction and the use, availability and regulatory responses to safer nicotine products around the world. Burning Issues picks up the story after our first GSTHR report, No Fire, No Smoke, published in 2018.

Central to this report is the universal right to health for those who for whatever reason continue to engage in risky behaviours. Harm reduction refers to a range of policies that reduce the risks associated with these behaviours, or encourage less risky behaviours, thereby enabling people to survive and live better – in this case through access to safer nicotine products (SNP) aimed at encouraging people to switch away from cigarettes, one of the most dangerous ways of consuming nicotine.

Despite a more globally hostile environment for THR, our exclusive survey of global prevalence of safer nicotine products, included in this report, estimates that the overall figure stands at approximately 98m, of whom 68m are vapers. While from a public health perspective this is good news, it still means that after more than a decade of product availability, there are only nine users of SNP for every 100 smokers.

Table of contents:

About the report

Forewords

Introduction

Chapter 1: Smoking: the slow-burning killer

Chapter 2: Market forces: products and consumers

Chapter 3: Not just the nicotine: consumers speak

Chapter 4: Clearing the smoke: safer nicotine products and health

Chapter 5: Project fear: the war against nicotine

Chapter 6: The politics of health: SNP regulation and control

Chapter 7: The right to health and the people left behind

Chapter 8: Burning issues: conclusions and recommendations

Annex: Estimation of the global number of vapers