When kicking the butt is difficult

Smoking causes more than one in 10 deaths worldwide with a global loss of nearly 150 million disability-adjusted life-years. In India alone, about one million Indians die from smoking-related causes every year, which are amongst the top three reasons to die. In spite of the health impact, cigarette smoking has been continually increasing globally. Smoking is a global crisis and the efforts to mitigate it, must emerge from global efforts.

The first medical study in 1950s conclusively linked smoking and lung cancer. While responding to the study, major players adopted filter as an integral component of cigarettes. The idea behind the filter was to screen out tar and nicotine to make the cigarette “safer.” By 1960s, filter cigarettes dominated the market. However, this did not lead to reduction in smoke induced ailments and the number of smokers continued to grow.

Of late, global brands like Philip Morris International (PMI) launched IQOS, an innovative product built on the principle of “Heat-Not-Burn” technology. IQOS, along with e-cigarettes, offered smokers a safer alternative than continued smoking. However, Philip Morris’ vision of cigarette-free future met with scepticism as it did not bring the desired change; smokers kept sticking to older version as a habit.

UK-based British American Tobacco also made e-cigarettes under the Vype brand and launched a competitive product called glo, which also didn’t work. Similarly, Imperial Tobacco also did not publish figures of its sales of vaporiser product, which  was launched to match IQOS and glo. The chief reason for failure was the nicotine kick in the conventional cigarettes, which could not be experienced in the new products.

Many countries such as the US, UK, Italy, Japan, India and France have begun to embrace alternatives methods of high taxes and explicit diseased pictures. Amongst various innovations, the new technology called as ‘ZIPAC’ (Zip Activated Charcoal) has shown tremendous potential. It could prevent the smokers from lopping off their lives, reducing smoke induced ailments, especially cancer by 80-85 per cent.

With ZIPAC technology, most of harmful content p-BSQ (p-benzosemiquinone), which is also commonly present in the tar phase of cigarette smoke, is proved to be arrested through a chemical reaction. This filter is a ‘Make in India’ initiative — from the concept, invention to product components, all are India-specific and also approved by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. The technology has already received patents globally from many countries.

The time has now come to shun the dogmatic and withered approaches. We need to attack the more harmful molecules of cigarette smoking, which would lead to reduction of the health hazards of smoking on the society. 
To permanently bend the global tobacco epidemic’s trajectory, a renewed and sustained focus is needed on comprehensive tobacco control policies especially by trying innovations that can bring the required change.

The author is professor, Calcutta University