Daily Times

The use of tobacco kills around eight million people each year, making it one of the leading preventable causes of death globally. And approximately 90% of these deaths are caused by smoking i.e the combustion of tobacco which is the most dangerous forms of consuming tobacco. And while complete abstinence remains a goal for many, the road to achieving it still remains one of the biggest challenges for smokers. To help smokers reduce the harm they are exposing themselves to, experts have been working towards developing smoke-free products that are less harmful to the body.

These substitutes include e-cigarettes, snus, vapes, nicotine pouches and heated tobacco products that work on the principle of heating the tobacco to release nicotine vapour as opposed to burning tobacco. Over the past few decades, adults in Sweden have largely abandoned cigarettes in favor of snus, and smoking rates have fallen to 5.6%. With the government’s cooperation, smokers in Japan have also adopted HTPs and the country saw a 43% decline in only half a decade. It is time that lower and middle-income countries like Pakistan that bear the brunt of smoking be next to adopt these strategies and regulate HTPs to bring the number down.