COMMON SENSE AND CONSUMERS’ INTERESTS SEEM TO BE LOSING OUT TO IDEOLOGY IN THE NEW TOBACCO BILL.

Consumer acceptance of IQOS has been excellent. In only 24 months since we launched IQOS across Japan, over three million people have quit smoking by switching to this product. The rate of switching has accelerated to about 8,000 people every day, an outcome that far exceeds what demand-side measures have ever accomplished and shows the way to meet the goal of “5 by ‘35” much sooner than 18 years from now. At the moment, however, there’s a critical element that’s missing: regulations that enable the full potential of less harmful tobacco products.

In our view, progressive regulation should include: (1) a pathway for rigorous scientific evaluation of innovative smoke-free products by the government, just as there is for many other products; (2) government ideology and strong conservatism in a bill now before Parliament. The draft bill to amend the Tobacco Act and Non-smokers’ Health Act — Bill S-5 — does not include any of the above three science-based elements. On the contrary it takes the illogical view that every product that contains tobacco — now and in the future — is equally bad. Under S-5, consumers will not be able to learn about products that are in fact a better choice than smoking, merely because they contain tobacco. This doesn’t make sense. It’s what a smoker inhales that’s most important, which the bill seems to recognize in other provisions that allow for a path to consumer information about the benefits of switching to e-cigarettes, which can contain nicotine, but not tobacco.

There are many analogies