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 Every 4 seconds, someone in the world dies from the
morbidities caused by smoking. However, it is a little-known fact that it’s the
smoke that causes disease and death, not nicotine. For those who can’t or won’t
quit smoking, tobacco harm reduction products offer a safer alternative to
combustible tobacco.
Unfortunately, too many people mistakenly believe that the most dangerous thing
about smoking is nicotine. Marginalized communities have the highest prevalence
of smoking and, as a result, they suffer the greatest health inequities. Many
falsely believe that nicotine causes cancer. When people who smoke perceive
nicotine replacement therapy or nicotine vapor products to be as harmful or more
harmful than smoking, they are less likely to use less harmful products when
attempting to quit smoking.
The widespread misperception about nicotine is due to misinformation. This
misinformation is prevalent in media and government messaging and can have
detrimental effects on public health. Unfortunately, the number of people
believing the misinformation about nicotine vapor products is rising. One of the
biggest sources of misinformation is fake news shared on social media. For
example, in the United States and the United Kingdom, adults who smoke were less
likely to try nicotine vapor products as a harm reduction strategy because of
misinformation on Twitter.
There is a real need for informative and accurate information about smoking and
nicotine, but most people don’t know where to find the information. A logical
resource should be their health care provider. However, most of the time, that
would be the wrong choice because 60 percent of nurses incorrectly perceive
nicotine as carcinogenic and 72 percent believe that nicotine patches could
cause heart attacks. One study found that the majority of physicians in the
United States were incorrect when they “strongly agreed” that nicotine directly
contributes to the development of cardiovascular disease (83.2 percent), COPD
(80.9 percent), and cancer (80.5 percent).
Due to the overwhelming amount of misinformation about nicotine, safer nicotine
products are subjected to heavy taxation and regulatory bans. In most places, it
remains easier to smoke than it is to access products that reduce risks to
people who smoke.
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Regulators and public health organizations should be concerned about the
public’s lack of knowledge about the relative risks between smoking and
reduced-risk nicotine alternatives. The public cannot make informed choices for
the good of their health if they are not fully aware of the facts. Barriers to
tobacco harm reduction products need to be addressed to ensure the maximum
impact on reducing the smoking epidemic.
However, it is not just the public who are confused. Lawmakers, medical
professionals, and the media are also woefully misinformed about nicotine. Those
misperceptions can be deadly if it discourages people from transitioning away
from the most harmful forms of nicotine to safer nicotine alternatives.
It will take a lot to change minds and dispel the now entrenched, and largely
mistaken, mistrust of nicotine. As in many areas of public life, urban myths and
half-truths which are ingrained over time are often easier to believe than the
truth for many in society. It is difficult to persuade people that the beliefs
that they hold are wrong.
For the benefit of public health, there need to be awareness campaigns focusing
on the difference between combustible tobacco use and devices that deliver
nicotine in a far safer form. The medical profession needs to be better trained
on modern harm reduction products in order that they can disseminate accurate
information to their patients, especially in areas where smoking rates are high,
instead of misinforming them as is currently happening. Media oversight is
lacking in this area. It may be true that bad news sells, but the avalanche of
inaccurate clickbait scare stories about products that could reduce the burden
of smoking-related disease and death must be stemmed.
Consumers deserve accurate information to enable them to make informed choices.
The country won’t achieve health equity and social justice if we continue to
misinform those who choose to use nicotine in a safe manner.
Kim Murray is a research fellow at the Taxpayers Protection
Alliance Consumer Center.
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