• More on this story

  • Cigarette packaging U turn will take politics out of the issue, minister says

    Jane Ellison defends move after Labour claimed government was only acting because it feared defeat in House of Lords

  • Every coalition U turn the list in full

  • U turn could result in plain packaging on cigarettes by 2015

  • Tobacco companies fuel black market in Britain, say MPs

  • Will banning 10 packs really help smokers quit?

  • EU to ban menthol cigarettes and make tobacco pack health warnings bigger

  • MEPs to vote on tougher smoking rules

  • 80% of teens in favour of standardised cigarette packaging, survey shows

  • Health groups dismayed by news ‘big tobacco’ funded rightwing thinktanks

  • Comment and debate

  • Big Tobacco’s unidentified voice goes unchallenged on the airwaves

    George Monbiot For some reason, the Institute of Economic Affairs is allowed to broadcast about smoking without revealing its paymasters

  • Heard a thinktank on the BBC? You haven’t heard the whole story

  • The BBC must declare the interests of its contributors, or lose our trust

  • Why the assault on cigarette packets? They already look like props in a horror movie

Jama network

Favorite brand of cigarettes t_t

Despite extraordinary success, progress has stalled in reducing premature deaths from tobacco (primarily caused by cigarettes or other combusting tobacco products and not by nicotine per se). The dominance of cigarettes over the past 100 years (the cigarette century) threatens to persist for another century.

Two philosophies have dominated tobacco control abstinence and harm reduction. Abstinence implies avoiding all tobacco use behavior because there is no safe tobacco or nicotine level. If avoidance is not practical or realistic, harm reduction sets a goal that minimizes the harm caused by the behavior. Tension between reduction and abstinence advocates can be divisive. The rapid rise in the use and popularity of e cigarettes has substantially increased this tension because of their potential for harm reduction. Although still variable in quality, appeal, and efficient nicotine delivery, e cigarettes represent an evolving frontier, filled with promise and peril for tobacco control practitioners, policy makers, and regulators.