The Tobacco Industry and Harm Reduction: A History of Deception

In Chapter 1, we examine chronologically the tobacco industry’s attempts to develop and market “safer” tobacco products, and its motivations for doing so. We conclude that the tobacco industry has never been genuinely interested in reducing harm. Instead it has repeatedly invested in and developed new ‘safer’ products as a response to the threat of decreasing cigarette sales – in other words, to prevent smokers from quitting entirely and to attract new users. Despite this being the real motive, industry leaders launched products accompanied by claims the industry was committed to harm reduction, and tobacco companies used “safer” products to rehabilitate their tarnished reputation, weaken tobacco control and attempt to divide the public health community. The rest of the report shows how these tactics are being repeated.