The Future of Smoking

The progress of technology pushes us to question the future of many things including smoking. As controversial as it gets, nicotine consumption is here to stay, although, can we say the same for tobacco-use? The tobacco industry seems aware of its limited ability to sustain current practices due to the empowerment of tobacco control authorities and awareness on the negative effects of cigarettes.

This is such a fast growing market that it is difficult to keep up with new trends and to imagine what the future holds. This article is right for you if you want to learn more about current tendencies of the market and to discuss the future of smoking on a global scale. We will examine the tendencies of the current market in order to discuss the future of smoking and the tobacco industry on a global scale.

Here you see the gloved hands of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) laboratory technician working with electronic cigarettes, referred to as e-cigarettes, or e-cigs, and vaping pens, while inside a laboratory environment.

The rise and fall of “replacement smokers”

Following the various tobacco control measures applied in coordination with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), it became challenging to sell and make profits of cigarettes for the tobacco industry. At least in the Western developed countries. As much as the litigation can slow down their process, we are talking about a zillions of dollars industry. According to Clive Bates¹ in “What is the future for the tobacco industry?” debate, litigation will continue to have its benefits, but in the end, you cannot stop the sale of a product that people need or want as the high demand still remains. On the other hand, Bates also claims that the diversification of tobacco stocks is very unlikely due to their volatility as a result of regulation and litigation risks. But following such a change in the industry compared to the booming of cigarettes in the late 20th Century, some might wonder how the tobacco industry is still so powerful?

Just because practices such as advertisement were banned in Western developed countries, it doesn’t mean that the tobacco industry completely stopped them. Instead, they did it in developing countries of Southeast Asia and Africa, where regulations are not as restrictive as in the West and where government structures are still vulnerable to various issues such as corruption. Interestingly, low-income countries had more deaths in 2017 than in 1990 from smoking, while most high-income countries had fewer deaths in 2017². But still, a lot of smokers die from diseases related to smoking as it is the leading cause of preventable death³. Sadly, while the smoking epidemic is shifting from the West to developing countries, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids affirms that the tobacco industry now targets kids in their advertising to enhance smoking prevalence and create what they call “replacement smokers” because their business model depends on it⁴.

The controversial reign of e-smoking

Despite all the smoking influences, having a product with different flavours attracts the younger clients and goes in the favour of smoking prevalence. In fact, the main reason why youth try the electronic cigarette for the first time is because of flavor⁵. Unfortunately, youth that use e-cigarettes might be more at risk to smoke cigarettes and be more vulnerable to other addictions⁶. If e-cigarettes were really designed to help people stop smoking, it wouldn’t be used as an alternative to smoking cigarettes or generating more people addicted to nicotine.

The e-cigarette leader company Juul, who was ranked as one of the most valuable start-ups of Silicon Valley and that is now part of the Altria Tobacco Group, saw a 614% increase in sales between 2016 and 2017 according to Sam Forsdick⁷. The controversies associated with e-cigarettes emerged when people, particularly the underaged population, used them to start smoking as a result of the misled advertisements of flavored products. Yet, the ban of e-cigarettes and their labelling as a harmful product only caused more confusion to the market as smokers wishing to quit felt left out of options. Although e-cigarettes are harmful due to the toxic chemicals that they contain, the CDC confirms that they expose users to fewer harmful chemicals than burned cigarettes⁶. Making them a safer option than cigarettes. But what if it would attract new consumers?

TED Talk presentation given by health policy expert and director of Center for Tobacco Products Center for Tobacco Products, FDA, Mitch Zeller.

“We are dealing with an epidemic of kids using e-cigarettes” explains Mitch Zeller, Director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products⁸.

E-cigarettes are extremely popular on a global scale. They have flavours, they deliver nicotine and allow users to make a bigger smoking cloud effect than an actual cigarette. Some would even do dripping, meaning that they dismantle the electronic cigarette to intensify the inhalation to make huge clouds⁹. New trends like dripping pose health concerns as it generates greater amounts of nicotine and the toxic chemicals are heated at a higher temperature which accentuate its adverse effect¹⁰. All those new features are attractive to the youth that are re-normalizing the practice, attracting new consumers, including people who do not smoke¹¹. While it looks like e-cigarettes are here to stay, this makes us question for good: what is the future of smoking?

Lookouts for a smoke-free future

Obviously, tobacco is smoked in order to consume nicotine and so are other smoking alternatives. With the progress of technology, the challenge isn’t to have the ‘coolest’ smoking form, the best tobacco or the latest technology. The future of smoking may get down to one main factor: nicotine delivery in the cleanest form possible. As Bates claims, “it is about who can offer nicotine as a lifestyle drug”¹.

The IQOS heated tobacco product developed by Philip Morris International (PMI) on a white background.

In 2016, Philip Morris International (PMI) publicly announced that they are committing to a major business transformation and are now dedicated to delivering a ‘smoke-free’ future¹². Their switch in the industry relies on the IQOS tobacco heating system which heats tobacco leaves to produce an inhalable aerosol instead of burning tobacco like traditional cigarettes. Unlike e-cigarettes, this device uses real tobacco to simulate the experience of smoking an actual cigarette. Another appealing product to the smoking-youth epidemic we might think, not to mention that various flavours might also be available. With tobacco combustion out of the equation, IQOS might be the middle point between the future of smoking and the tobacco industry’s survival.

While PMI claims that IQOS are less toxic than cigarettes, research on these devices also reveals deleterious compounds in the smoke^13,14,15,16, which might generate additional volatiles that are risky for the health^17,18,19,20. Flavored IQOS products could potentially have even more harmful components^13,14,17. In that sense, these devices could lead to cardiovascular diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma and stroke²¹. Although IQOS does not completely eradicate the exposure to unhealthy components of traditional cigarettes, we could hypothesize that novel tobacco systems would turn into healthier alternatives in the future²².

With the increasing awareness about the risks associated with tobacco-use, the smoking prevalence rates could have a major decrease in the future. With this in mind, the seduction of a niche market might be a solution for the future tobacco advocates, with the sales of tobacco heating products or other alternatives meeting the regulatory requirements.

Since most of this research is done by the companies themselves, much more independent research will be needed to determine if these novel devices are actually less harmful. Let’s hope that in the future we will focus more on global health and not on profit. Who knows what kind of high tech devices we will be using in the future?

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References

¹Bates, C. (2000). What is the future for the tobacco industry? Tobacco Control, 9(2), 237–238. https://doi.org/10.1136/tc.9.2.237 .

²Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. (2021, June). Smoking. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/smoking .

³Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020, December 10). Fast Facts and Fact Sheets. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/index.htm .

⁴Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. (2015, March 17th). Still Seeking Replacements - How Big Tobacco Targets Kids Today. Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/microsites/replacements/.

⁵Ambrose, B. K., Day, H. R., Rostron, B., Conway, K. P., Borek, N., Hyland, A., & Villanti, A. C. (2015). Flavored Tobacco Product Use Among US Youth Aged 12-17 Years, 2013-2014. JAMA, 314(17), 1871–1873. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2015.13802 .

⁶U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2016). E-Cigarette Use Among Youth and Young Adults. A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health.

⁷Forsdick, S. (2019, March 14). As more smokers quit cigarettes, what is the future of the tobacco industry? NS Business. https://www.ns-businesshub.com/science/future-of-tobacco-industry/.

⁸Mitch, Z. (2020, January 22). The past, present and future of nicotine addiction | Mitch Zeller [Video]. TEDxMidAtlantic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfLp_vueUxY&list=LL&index=4 .

⁹Dinardo, P., & Rome, E. S. (2019). Vaping: the new wave of nicotine addiction. Cleve Clin J Med, 86(12), 789-798.

¹⁰Talih, S., Balhas, Z., Salman, R., Karaoghlanian, N., & Shihadeh, A. (2016). “Direct Dripping”: A High-Temperature, High-Formaldehyde Emission Electronic Cigarette Use Method. Nicotine & Tobacco Research: Official Journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, 18(4), 453–459. https://doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntv080 .

¹¹Collier, R. (2015). E-cigarette data don't end debate. Canadian Medical Association. Journal, 187(10), E291. 12Lester, T. (2020, July 14). How Philip Morris Is Planning for a Smoke-Free Future. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2020/07/how-philip-morris-is-planning-for-a-smoke-free-future .

¹²Lester, T. (2020, July 14). How Philip Morris Is Planning for a Smoke-Free Future. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2020/07/how-philip-morris-is-planning-for-a-smoke-free-future .

¹³Kogel, U., Titz, B., Schlage, W. K., Nury, C., Martin, F., Oviedo, A., Lebrun, S., Elamin, A., Guedj, E., Trivedi, K., Ivanov, N. V., Vanscheeuwijck, P., Peitsch, M. C., & Hoeng, J. (2016). Evaluation of the Tobacco Heating System 2.2. Part 7: Systems toxicological assessment of a mentholated version revealed reduced cellular and molecular exposure effects compared with mentholated and non-mentholated cigarette smoke. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology: RTP, 81 Suppl 2, S123–S138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yrtph.2016.11.001 .

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¹⁵Sewer, A., Kogel, U., Talikka, M., Wong, E. T., Martin, F., Xiang, Y., Guedj, E., Ivanov, N. V., Hoeng, J., & Peitsch, M. C. (2016). Evaluation of the Tobacco Heating System 2.2 (THS2.2). Part 5: MicroRNA expression from a 90-day rat inhalation study indicates that exposure to THS2.2 aerosol causes reduced effects on lung tissue compared with cigarette smoke. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology: RTP, 81 Suppl 2, S82–S92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yrtph.2016.11.018 .

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¹⁷Bekki, K., Inaba, Y., Uchiyama, S., & Kunugita, N. (2017). Comparison of Chemicals in Mainstream Smoke in Heat-not-burn Tobacco and Combustion Cigarettes. Journal of UOEH, 39(3), 201–207. https://doi.org/10.7888/juoeh.39.201 .

¹⁸Li, X., Luo, Y., Jiang, X., Zhang, H., Zhu, F., Hu, S., Hou, H., Hu, Q., & Pang, Y. (2019). Chemical Analysis and Simulated Pyrolysis of Tobacco Heating System 2.2 Compared to Conventional Cigarettes. Nicotine & Tobacco Research: Official Journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, 21(1), 111–118. https://doi.org/10.1093/ntr/nty005 .