KUALA LUMPUR: With an estimated population of more than 1.14 billion conventional tobacco smokers worldwide, governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) around the world are racing against time to find the best solutions or alternatives to end the habit from incurring massive health and economic losses in their respective countries.
Several studies, including the Global Burden of Disease Study conducted about six years ago, estimated that about 80 per cent of the global smoking population lived in low- and medium-income countries.
While smoking accounted for 1.8 per cent of the world's annual gross domestic product (GDP), it is also the single biggest cause of non-communicable disease (NCD) worldwide.
To avert the impact of conventional cigarette smoking and the public health crisis, several countries have passed laws and rolled out campaigns for a smoke-free future in their attempts to eliminate the habit.
"If you don't smoke, don't start; if you smoke, quit; if you don't quit, change" is the message propagated by some countries, which not only encourages people to remove all forms of tobacco and nicotine from their lives but also encourages them to switch to smoke-free alternatives that may potentially reduce the level of harmful or potentially harmful chemicals if they choose to continue smoking.
Even industry players have jumped on board, transforming their lines of products to provide alternatives which they claim are backed by scientific data to be less harmful, for avid smokers to abandon traditional cigarretes.
Industry players believe that while nicotine is an addictive substance, it is the carbon monoxide, tar and other chemicals in the smoke produced during the combustion of conventional cigarettes that will cause damage to the health of smokers.
Gizelle Baker, vice president of Global Scientific Engagement at Philip Morris International (PMI), said the company is taking on a big responsibility and is committed to helping avid smokers change their lifestyle by switching to less harmful alternatives for the sake of personal health.
PMI, she said, has conducted several scientific studies to develop alternatives that the company believes are less harmful for avid smokers to transition from conventional tobacco products.
"Based on our research and development as well as information from studies conducted by experts and independent bodies, we developed alternatives we believed were able to meet the needs of (avid) smokers, so that they will no longer rely on smoking traditional (conventional) cigarettes," she said.
Among the alternatives were heated tobacco products, which use heating elements at a much lower temperature without combustion.
The company claimed over 50 independent studies were conducted on such a product, which confirmed that it produces lower levels of harmful chemicals compared to conventional cigarettes.
"It was also reviewed by the United States' Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which concluded that significant reduction of toxic chemicals far outweighed the little bit of risk from the realy low doses that were hired," Baker said, adding that another 32 papers were submitted to US FDA which strengthen the evidence on alternatives such as heated tobacco products.
PMI head of scientific engagement Ignacio Gonzalez Suarez said each government around the world has adopted different approaches to tobacco control management to promote smoking cessation among the people in their respective countries.
"At PMI, one of the things that we realised was that, it is fundamental for us to embark on and intensify our research and development (R&D) that providing alternatives is a better option for people who want to continue smoking. "There are one billion smokers (around the world) out there. Prevention and cessation measures have played a role (in the efforts to reduce or eliminate smoking habits) but we still have a lot of smokers.
"If we can include harm reduction, we will not only reduce the number of smokers (of combustible tobacco products) but also smoke-related harm (harmful effect of conventional cigarette products)," he said when met at PMI's R&D centre in Switzerland recently.
He added that more and more countries such as the US, United Kingdom, Greece, New Zealand, Uruguay and Japan have or are beginning to acknowledge how alternatives are less harmful to smokers of conventional tobacco products.
Baker banked on government agencies as well as health NGOs to increase awareness about less harmful alternatives to smoking conventional tobacco products.
This, she said, will provide access to accurate information based on scientific studies and facts to help avid smokers quit the habit.
"If an avid smoker is not informed that alternatives (to conventional tobacco products) exist, they do not know what the products are and why they should switch.
"If they have access to those pieces of information, we believe that a higher proportion of them may give up smoking altogether," she said.