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suggesting that they did less harm. Years after their launch, however, research showed that <br />low-tar cigarettes had exactly the opposite effect. <br />Now we have electronic cigarettes. Is this the latest ruse, or is it really an innovation we <br />should welcome? <br />Let’s review the appalling statistics. There are about 1.3 billion smokers in the world and <br />roughly six million smoking-related deaths every year. In the United Kingdom alone, <br />smoking causes 80,000 deaths. That’s 18 per cent of all deaths. What’s more, for every <br />death there are 20 smokers suffering from tobacco-related diseases, resulting in 450,000 <br />hospital admissions each year. No other single cause of death and disease can so easily be <br />prevented. <br />The WHO framework convention stresses the value of government-led measures: increasing <br />excise taxes, banning all marketing and advertising, and promoting smoke-free workplaces. <br />Early in its development, we invited tobacco company scientists to provide evidence that <br />their harm-reduction measures were real and not merely marketing ploys. Their responses <br />were unconvincing. <br />At the same time, the first public evidence emerged that, for decades, tobacco companies <br />had a sophisticated understanding of the role of nicotine. But they had failed to act on this <br />knowledge and separate the harm caused by combusted tobacco from the ‘pleasure’ some <br />people obtain from nicotine. <br />Let’s take a quick look at another tobacco product — one that’s never caught on in the UK. <br />Snus is smokeless tobacco in a little packet that Swedes tuck against their gum in order to <br />get a nicotine buzz. For many years, the increased use of snus versus regular tobacco has <br />been a major factor in Swedish men having the lowest death rate in the European Union. <br />Indeed, death rates from all causes among European men are about 2.5 times higher than <br />among Swedish men — thanks, in part, to snus. Also, as snus use has increased, smoking <br />has decreased. Snus was banned in all EU countries except Sweden (and Norway, which <br />isn’t in the EU). In Finland, the ban slowed down the drop in smoking. In Norway, by <br />contrast, snus consumption by adults rose from 4 per cent in 1985 to 28 per cent in 2012 — <br />and overall tobacco use fell by 20 per cent.