How should we regulate smokeless tobacco products and e-cigarettes?

Gartner, Coral E; Hall, Wayne D; Borland, Ron

doi:10.5694/mja12.10940

Less harmful forms of nicotine have harm reduction potential that is worth investigating

Concern has been expressed about the possible increased use of smokeless forms of tobacco, such as low-nitrosamine smokeless tobacco (SLT) and electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), also known as e-cigarettes (Box).1 Domestic sale of SLT was banned pre-emptively in 1991 in response to overseas marketing of these products to youth. Currently, Australians are permitted to import limited amounts of SLT for personal use, but the importation of nicotine cartridges and solutions for use in ENDS is prohibited because nicotine is a Schedule 7 poison. Meanwhile, the most harmful tobacco products — conventional cigarettes — are ubiquitous in Australian retail environments.

1 University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD.
2 VicHealth Centre for Tobacco Control, Cancer Council Victoria, Melbourne, VIC.

Correspondence: w.hall@uq.edu.au

Competing interests:

We are investigators on a National Health and Medical Research Council-funded project grant that is trialling low-nitrosamine SLT products and ENDS as quitting aids for smokers. Ron Borland is a principal investigator on the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project.

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