Tobacco firm Philip Morris calls for ban on cigarettes within decade | Hacker News Reader

Tobacco firm Philip Morris calls for ban on cigarettes within decade

theguardian.com

18 pointssamizdis12 comments

> PMI is pushing the IQOS, a cigarette device that heats tobacco to deliver nicotine without the smoke and tar that cause diseases including cancer.

It's not clear how much safer heated tobacco products (such as IQOS) are than traditional cigarettes. Most studies are sponsored by the tobacco industry.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S07618...

> Of the 100 papers published in 2008–2018, 75 have authors affiliated or linked to TI [tobacco industry]. Emissions contain gases, droplets and solid particles, so are smokes. The main products are: THS2.2 (Iqos®) which heats mini-cigarettes at 340 °C, the THP1.0 (Glo®) which heats at 240 °C sticks delivering about half as much nicotine, Ploom® which uses reconstituted tobacco microcapsules heated at 180 °C. Under the experimental conditions, there is a reduction of toxic emissions and biological effects, but the expected risk reduction is not demonstrated. Symptoms related to passive smoking are described. The 4 epidemiological articles report that heated tobacco is used in 10 to 45% of cases by non-smokers and demonstrate the effectiveness of TI promotion campaigns. Thus, the THS2.2 is more a gateway to smoking (20%) than an exit door (11%); moreover, it is not expected risk reduction among the 69% who are mixed users.

Vaping is fairly popular, safe, and satisfies the urge for most people. What's the market for this device?

> Vaping is fairly popular, safe

No. Vaping is not "safe". Please stop saying this.

Vaping is safer than cigarettes. That seems to be true. Vaping is a great intermediate step to try to get people off of cigarettes.

Vaping is NOT safer than not vaping. One huge problem with vaping is that it has infested the high schools and reversed 25 years of anti-smoking efforts.

Vaping has been infesting schools long enough to see some consequences. Yet aside from shrill parents calling it trashy every time there's been health consequences that matter it's the kid with a pre-existing condition or the one who shotgunned seven juuls at the same time.

Very surprising to see this headline (although I doubt it will come to pass). Given recent movements towards ending the war on drugs (e.g., legalizing Marijuana), it seems rather hypocritical to then try and ban cigarettes. Admittedly this is in the UK, and I’m not super familiar with their politics.

The taxpayer cost of legal marijuana is far, far, far less than the taxpayer cost of legal tobacco.

...so far. But the sociatal cost of cigarettes is all about the cancer. Smoking weed has the same problem. Legalizing smoking weed was/will be a mistake. Other methods of ingesting are another story entirely.

Nobody is going to be smoking 20+ joints per day, every day. Cigarettes also have more carcinogenic chemicals per unit of inhaled smoke, so it's not a 1 to 1 comparison. Smoking weed also has anti-inflammatory effects, and other chemistry that counters some of the negative effects of combustion.

It's not great for you, but its level of harm is closer to vaping than to smoking cigarettes.

If someone does persistently smoke comparable amounts of marijuana per day, they're also likely to have a substance abuse issue. I don't think even Snoop or Willie do it like that.

Marijuana has other negative side effects especially when used by people under 18. I don't know about the long term evidence, but I would bet there are cognitive issues associated with regular use, such as short term memory loss.

It is also surprisingly common and socially accepted to drive while under the influence.

What would it be if it reaches saturation like cigarettes did?

First, the number of marijuana users is likely not far away from the number of tobacco smokers in the US.

It still wouldn't be close. It's much more expensive to treat a single case of cancer (or lose a person's life) than it does to treat a single case of... whatever marijuana causes.

Just the fact that marijuana isn't known to dramatically increase fatalities in its tens of millions of users should tell us what we need to know.

PMI is shutting down cigarette production in all its forms anyway and focusing on using their inhalation expertise in the medical sector + e-cigarettes and IQOS products. Just some context.

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