BAT.com

Building A Smokeless World

Welcome – Dr. James Murphy

 

Twenty years ago, I joined BAT as an R&D Management Trainee. The BAT I joined then was a very different company to the one it is today.

 

Our ambition is to reduce the health impact of our business. This is front and centre of our corporate purpose to build A Better Tomorrow™. We will achieve this through Tobacco Harm Reduction – the switching of smokers, who would otherwise continue to smoke, from risky forms of combustible tobacco products like cigarettes, to lower risk profile smokeless tobacco and nicotine products.

 

Today, if I was to describe BAT in one word, it would be Transformation. We are at the vanguard of the development and scientific assessment of a range of innovative new nicotine products that do not burn tobacco. We now have three global brands of smokeless products: glo™ (Heated Product), Vuse™ (Vapour Product) and Velo™ (Oral Nicotine Pouches). Due to the absence of combustion, these products deliver substantially (>90-99%) reduced levels of toxic chemicals that are associated with smoking related diseases.1*†

 

Our transformation parallels many other legacy combustion-based industries – energy, automotive and transportation – who are today transforming their businesses to non-combustion products. In all cases, the combustion of organic material produces toxic compounds which then have a profound, negative impact on society.

 

A decade ago we launched our first electronic vapour product in the UK and the US and today, we have 29.1 million users of our smokeless products. Our goal is to have 50 million users of our smokeless products by 2030 and 50% of our revenue from these products by 2035.

 

We have published the results of 250+ scientific studies for our smokeless products in peer-reviewed journals. In summary, and based on this weight of evidence, our scientific judgment and belief is that our alternative smokeless products are less risky*† than smoking conventional cigarettes.

 

I understand there may be scepticism around Tobacco Harm Reduction and Science from the tobacco industry. That is why we are committed to openly sharing our scientific findings and welcome open dialogue and discussion.

References

* Based on the weight of evidence and assuming a complete switch from cigarette smoking. These products are not risk-free and are addictive.

† Our vapour product Vuse (including Alto, Solo, Ciro and Vibe), and certain products, including Velo, Grizzly, Kodiak, and Camel Snus, which are sold in the U.S., are subject to FDA regulation and no reduced-risk claims will be made as to these products without agency clearance.

1. Comparison with smoke from a scientific standard reference cigarette (approximately 9mg of tar) in terms of the average of the 9 harmful components the World Health Organisation recommends to reduce in cigarette smoke.

 

Omni™ – Forward Thinking for a Smokeless World

 

The Omni™ is a progress summary of our journey to A Better Tomorrow™ by Building a Smokeless World.  We believe that through knowledge sharing we can build that world. This is why we created the Omni™.

 

Intended for scientists, public health authorities, regulators, policy makers, and investors, the Omni™ offers a summary of the global Tobacco Harm Reduction evidence base created over the last decade.

 

The Omni™ is organised as a collection of materials and is structured to enable interested readers to visit the sections of the Omni™ in any order they wish, to learn more about Tobacco Harm Reduction, and to understand BAT’s journey.

 

Download the full version via the Omni™ microsite Learn more at asmokelessworld.com

Tobacco Harm Reduction

 

Harm reduction, in general, refers to health policies, strategies and programmes that aim to reduce the harms and negative impacts (social and/or physical) associated with what are deemed ‘risky’ behaviours.

 

These approaches are founded on improving individual and general public health and are supported by science and a strong body of evidence.

 

We also have harm reduction aims, programmes and strategies. The first is aligned with globally recognised public health authorities that the safest thing for a smoker is to quit.

 

However, as many people enjoy using nicotine, they will not quit and should be provided with a substitute alternative tobacco or nicotine product. This is a form of Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR).

 

THR is a public health policy that aims to minimise the health risks associated with using tobacco. Its purpose is to enable consumers who would otherwise continue to smoke to switch to alternative forms of tobacco and nicotine products that have a lower profile of risk as compared to cigarettes.

 

It is now widely acknowledged that the cause of most of the serious health risks associated with conventional cigarettes is the exposure to toxicants in the smoke produced when tobacco is burned – and not the nicotine.1

 

There exists today three global categories of alternative smokeless products: Heated Products, Vapour Products and Oral Nicotine Pouches. Organisations, such as Public Health England*, are clear that vaping is likely to be much less risky than smoking traditional cigarettes when used as a complete substitute for continued cigarette smoking.2

 

Similarly, Balfour et al. stated that “vaping can benefit public health, given substantial evidence supporting the potential of vaping to reduce smoking’s [death] toll.”3

 

Additionally, more than 115 million of the world’s 1 billion smokers have switched to smokeless products, with 10 million switching to Oral Nicotine Pouches, 40 million to Heated Products and 65 million to the largest category, Vapour products.

Watch:

Advancing Tobacco Harm Reduction

 

References

*Public Health England (PHE) was replaced in Oct 2021 by UK Health Security Agency and Office for Health Improvement and Disparities

  1. 1. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS). A Report of the Surgeon General: How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease
  2. 2. E-cigarettes: an evidence update – A report commissioned by Public Health England
  3. 3. Balfour et al. Balancing Consideration of the Risks and Benefits of E-Cigarettes. Am J Public Health. 2021 Sep;111(9):1661-1672. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306416

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

The Swedish Experience

 

Countries that have recognised the opportunity Tobacco Harm Reduction presents, and which have adopted supportive policies, have seen striking success in reducing their smoking rates. The US, UK and Japan are all currently witnessing their lowest smoking rates on record, while Sweden is on track to declare themselves the first smokefree country in the EU – defined as have fewer than 5% of daily smokers in the population – well ahead of the 2040 EU target. 

 

Sweden’s experience with snus is a useful case study for tobacco harm reduction. Snus is a traditional smokeless tobacco product that is placed between the lip and gums and held in the mouth for around 30 minutes, during which time it slowly releases nicotine without inhalation. It has been available in Sweden for 200 years, while the composition has changed, and manufacturing methods have improved dramatically over that time.

 

Although Sweden has the highest consumption of smokeless tobacco, per capita in the world, Swedish men have the lowest death rate attributable to tobacco and the lowest incidence of lung cancer and other tobacco-related diseases of nearly every country in the world.1

 

More recently, other smokeless products – vapour, heated products and tobacco-free oral nicotine pouches – have been introduced in Sweden. Helping to reduce the prevalence of smoking.

 

This remarkable transformation in Sweden, and other countries, has been driven by widespread acceptance of Tobacco Harm Reduction from policymakers, regulators, health officials and consumers in these markets; encouraging smokers, who would otherwise continue to smoke, to migrate to smokeless alternatives.

References

*Based on the weight of evidence and assuming a complete switch from cigarette smoking. These products are not risk free and are addictive.

**Use of Swedish Snus is not a risk factor for oral cancer and no association has been established with neck, oesophagus and gastric cancer.

  1. 1. WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer’s World Cancer “Cancer Today” Database: Age-standardised mortality rate per 100,000, extracted 2022.
  2. 2. www.smokefreesweden.org (Report: SAVING LIVES LIKE SWEDEN 02082023 WEB & Report: The Swedish Experience EN)