SMOKELESS TOBACCO REDUCES SMOKING RELATED DEATH
Writing in The Lancet, the University of Nottingham professor
observes that while nicotine is the addictive component in
cigarettes, it is the other toxins in smoked tobacco that kill.
So, he argues, if smokers cannot quit, safer nicotine products
must be made available as alternatives. He says current
medicinal options are expensive, tightly regulated and woefully
inadequate. "At the moment we have nicotine products on the
market, but they are all pretty poor by comparison with smoking
as a source of rapid high dose nicotine." He observes, "I have
yet to meet anyone who says, 'That was fantastic, felt just like
a cigarette.'"
Britton proposes giving smokers more potent nicotine substitutes
for tobacco, in much the same way heroin addicts trying to quit
get methadone. "We could end up with just as many people
addicted to nicotine in society as we have at the moment, but
that nicotine addiction is not going to cause any serious harm
to the great majority of them."
