Every 4 seconds, someone in the world dies from the morbidities caused by smoking.
However, it is a little-known fact that it’s the smoke that causes disease and death, not nicotine. For those who can’t or won’t quit smoking, tobacco harm reduction products offer a safer alternative to combustible tobacco.
Unfortunately, too many people mistakenly believe that the most dangerous thing about smoking is nicotine. Marginalized communities have the highest prevalence of smoking and, as a result, they suffer the greatest health inequities. Many falsely believe that nicotine causes cancer. When people who smoke perceive nicotine replacement therapy or nicotine vapor products to be as harmful or more harmful than smoking, they are less likely to use less harmful products when attempting to quit smoking.
The widespread misperception about nicotine is due to misinformation. This misinformation is prevalent in media and government messaging and can have detrimental effects on public health. Unfortunately, the number of people believing the misinformation about nicotine vapor products is rising. One of the biggest sources of misinformation is fake news shared on social media. For example, in the United States and the United Kingdom, adults who smoke were less likely to try nicotine vapor products as a harm reduction strategy because of misinformation on Twitter.
Kim Murray – Taxpayers Protection Alliance – 2022-04-21.
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