Categories
· Health/Science
· Tobacco Control
· Nicotine
· Harm Reduction
· Alternate/Reduced Risk
non-USA, by Country
· UK
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Jump to full article: Financial Times (uk), 2010-02-01
Author: Nicholas Timmins, Public Policy Editor
Intro: A major shift in the government’s anti-smoking policy has been quietly announced, allowing nicotine products to be sold as a long-term substitute for smoking, not just as an aid to quitting. . . .
The change is quietly noted with no fanfare towards the end of a new anti-smoking strategy published on Monday which aims to halve the proportion of the population who smoke to 10 per cent by 2020.
In what is known as a “harm reduction” approach, the government recognises that “people have different levels of addiction” to cigarettes and so different methods will be used in future “including using nicotine replacement therapy for extended periods of time”.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has already granted a licence for the Nicorette inhalator for longer term use as “a safer alternative to smoking” and is inviting manufacturers of other gums, patches, nasal sprays, inhalators, tablets and pastilles to follow suit. The agency said it is also “encouraging the development and wider availability of safer nicotine delivery medicines”.
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