The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Consistent epidemiological findings in the 1950s and 60s of orderly dose-response associations between amount smoked and lung cancer risk led European regulators to seek gradually reducing tar and nicotine emissions from manufactured cigarettes as a harm reduction measure. Initially introduced at country level, limits on brand yields were subsequently implemented throughout the EU by product directives. Currently, maximum tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide yields of 10mg, 1mg and 10 mg (as measured by smoking machines) are mandated. However, the well-established finding that smoke intakes in smokers bear little or no relation to machine-smoked yields calls this policy into fundamental question. The EU policy is itself deeply confused: yield-based branding claims such as ‘light' and ‘mild' are disallowed as misleading; yet brand yields, which implicitly repeat those claims, are required to be printed on the pack. The missing ingredient in product regulation has been an understanding of nicotine seeking behaviour. There has been an undue focus on what comes out of cigarettes, and neglect of the smoker. Intakes are determined not by products, but by an interaction between the user and the product. Real progress in mandating tobacco products that wreak less havoc on their users will only come if policy is based on a proper understanding of the dynamics of nicotine dependence.