Q. Your presentation will discuss The future of oral tobacco and nicotine products can you give us an insight of what delegates will hear?
Combusted tobacco is now being replaced by innovation such as e-cigarettes and Heat-not-burned products. I will address what is currently happening in parallel on the smokeless tobacco market with tobacco-free smokeless alternatives
Q. Why is this topic important at the moment?
While e-cigarettes and to some extent HnB products have been recognized and subsequentially regulated, less is known about tobacco-free smokeless nicotine products and regulation is warranted.
Q. What are the main challenges that the industry is facing and how do you think that this conference can address them?
While the concept of harm-reduction in the tobacco space is recognized by some researchers and regulators prohibition and control mechanisms are still considered to be more effective from a public health perspective by many stakeholders including authorities. The fact that a rapid transition from cigarettes to less harmful alternatives can occur, and actually has occurred is often communicated as a concerning raise in numbers of users of the reduced harm product instead of being recognized as a very successful outcome based on a rapid decline in smoking. Most recently seen in Norway and now Denmark were smokling incidence has dropped significantly at the same time as the use. of smokeless products has increased, which has resulted in that the authorities has expressed concern about the rising numbers of smokeless users instead of being enthusiastic about the smoking decline. The conference could continue to spread knowledge about the importance and significance of a harm reduction strategy in order to benefit public health.
Q. Why do you feel this is an important event to be involved in?
For Swedish Match it is important to highlight also the harm reduced smokeless products developed for current tobacco users .Much focus has been directed towards ENDS, but tobacco-free nicotine pouches are an important part of the Swedish smorgasbord
