Tobacco Harm Reduction Seminar in Brazil

The South American Seminar on Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR), held in São Paulo on 11 May 2023, saw experienced speakers from fields such as public health, academia, and government gather to discuss key science topics related to THR.

The seminar was also the ideal launch of pahra.net – the Pan America Harm Reduction Alliance (PAHRA) website, dedicated to providing accurate information on THR and related topics.

Although Brazil played a decisive role in developing the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), it currently joins many other countries where THR strategies are not well established.

Some key takeaways from the seminar:

• Potential lives saved with THR: Embracing empathetic tactics to encourage individual smokers to quit or switch to non-combustible THR products could save as many as 3 million lives per year by 2060.
• Case studies from Sweden, Japan, the UK, New Zealand and Germany: Policy responses must be based on Professor Michael Russell’s statement that “People smoke for the nicotine but die from the tar.” The case studies show that encouraging affordable, accessible, socially acceptable alternatives to smoking that provide nicotine and do not involve smoking drastically lowers smoking rates (and the related disease burden and mortality rates).
• Nicotine policy principles such as risk-proportionate regulation, youth prevention, labelling, cessation and taxation: Regulators have enormous potential to positively impact THR through risk-proportionate regulation, where the most harmful products (such as cigarettes) are very strictly regulated, but the least harmful products (such as vapes) are regulated with consumer protection in mind. This impacts the approach to labelling, taxation, advertising and more. 
• Consumer insights on the topics of misinformation, cessation motives and methods, flavours, and nicotine misperceptions: Although many current smokers indicate that they would like to stop smoking, the effective quit rate is very low. Furthermore, consumers are misinformed about the harm reduction benefits of THR products such as vapes, snus and tobacco pouches – believing them to be as harmful (or even more harmful) as combustible tobacco products.