WHO’s misinformation on safer nicotine alternatives “will cost lives”

STOCKHOLM – International health experts have criticised the World Health Organization (WHO) for portraying safer nicotine alternatives as a public health menace, rather than recognising their role in accelerating declines in smoking.  

As the world’s premier technical health agency, WHO is empowered to support strategies that reduce morbidity and mortality even if they do not eliminate the underlying behaviour. Furthermore, it should base its guidance on evolving scientific knowledge, which includes comparative-risk assessments. Equating smokefree nicotine alternatives with combustible cigarettes, is essentially putting lives at risk, say public health specialists.

The warning follows recent WHO comments suggesting that vaping and other non-combustible nicotine products are driving tobacco use in Europe. This narrative ignores real-world evidence from countries where access to safer alternatives has coincided with record low smoking rates.

Sweden is on the brink of official smoke-free status (defined as an adult daily smoking prevalence below 5%) and is clear proof that pragmatic harm-reduction policies work. Sweden’s success has been driven by adult smokers switching to lower-risk alternatives such as nicotine pouches and other non-combustible products.

“Vapes and pouches are helping to reduce risk, and Sweden’s smoke-free transition proves this,” said Dr Delon Human, leader of Smoke Free Sweden. “We should be celebrating policies that help smokers quit combustible tobacco, not spreading fear about the very tools that are accelerating the decline of cigarettes.”

Health experts warn that conflating cigarettes with non-combustible alternatives risks deterring smokers from switching and could slow progress toward reducing tobacco-related disease.

Dr Human emphasised that youth protection and harm reduction are not mutually exclusive.

“It is critically important to safeguard against underage use, but this should be done by targeted, risk-differentiated regulation and proper enforcement, not by sacrificing the right of adults to access products that might save their lives,” he said.

Smoke Free Sweden is calling on global health authorities to adopt evidence-based policies that distinguish clearly between combustible tobacco – the primary cause of tobacco-related death – and lower-risk nicotine alternatives.

“Public health policy must be grounded in science and real-world outcomes,” Dr Human added. “Sweden’s experience shows that when adult smokers are given access to safer alternatives, smoking rates fall faster than almost anywhere else in the world.”