On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration took an important action to improve the nation’s health — by approving a new tobacco product.
After two years of consideration, the FDA is finally allowing tobacco company Altria to begin selling IQOS, a product manufactured by its sister company Philip Morris International.
IQOS is what’s known as a heat-not-burn product. The device is small and pen-like, housed in a case for charging. The user inserts a plug of tobacco, presses a button, and a heating blade warms the tobacco to produce an aerosol. Unlike e-cigarettes, IQOS mimics the taste of a traditional cigarette.
But why is approving a new tobacco product made by one of the world’s most hated companies a win for public health?
Because IQOS heats tobacco instead of burning it, the levels of harmful and potentially harmful chemicals in the aerosol are dramatically reduced compared with a regular cigarette. IQOS does, however, deliver levels of nicotine similar to a regular cigarette. What makes cigarettes so lethal isn’t the nicotine or even the tobacco: It’s the process of burning tobacco and inhaling high concentrations of extremely harmful chemicals.
Remove the burning, and you remove the smoke. When you remove the smoke, you have something substantially safer than a cigarette.
While not harmless, IQOS gives smokers who would not otherwise quit cigarettes an option to switch from the most lethal form of tobacco to something substantially safer. Empowering smokers with safer alternatives has already proven a success in countries such as the U.K. and Japan. In the U.K., where the government and public health community have endorsed e-cigarettes as a smoking alternative, smoking rates have fallen substantially.
In Japan, where IQOS was first launched, the products have proved immensely popular. In 2018, the whole heat-not-burn category amounted to 21% of Japan’s total tobacco market, compared with 12% in 2017. Japan Tobacco, the biggest player in Japan’s cigarette market, suffered a fall in cigarette sales volume of 11.4% last year. Across the world, 7.3 million people have kicked cigarettes in favor of IQOS. Instead of bullying smokers with taxes, bans, and social stigma, new nicotine products are offering smokers the nicotine they desire without the smoke that may kill them.
But before a single IQOS has even been sold in the U.S., anti-tobacco campaigners are screaming blue murder. The Truth Initiative and Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids claim IQOS poses a threat to children. These fears are misplaced at best and baseless fearmongering at worst. The international evidence shows IQOS is not appealing to kids or non-smokers. FDA has examined the evidence and determined IQOS is appropriate for the protection of public health and that it can help smokers quit.
While FDA should be applauded for approving IQOS, the decision shines a worrying light on the whole process for approving safer alternatives to smoking. Philip Morris International is one of the biggest companies in the world and can afford to comply with the massive regulatory burden the FDA places on companies trying to bring these products to market. Today’s small e-cigarette manufacturers have close to zero chance of clearing this process. While IQOS has been approved for sale, Philip Morris International’s second application, which would allow it to inform smokers of the benefits of switching to IQOS, remains in limbo.
Not everyone will celebrate the news that a tobacco company has a new product on the market. But what should be celebrated is that those smokers who want to quit but haven’t been able to have one more option to make their journey that bit easier.
Guy Bentley (@gbentley1) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is director of consumer freedom at the Reason Foundation and was previously a reporter for the Daily Caller.
