Alternative Tobacco Products are Safe Says Senior Doctor

Labels on alternative tobacco products that state they are no safer than regular cigarettes are simply not true.

That's what one senior doctor told us in an interview on the electronic cigarettes, alternative tobacco products and the upcoming tobacco bill.

Any increased risk of death arising from Snus, a form of chewing tobacco, is so small it cannot be measured by current studies, said Dr Nitzkin, who is Chair of the Tobacco Control Task Force for the American Association of Public Health Physicians.

The doctor estimates that the danger to users of another alternative smoking products, the electronic cigarette, is between one percent and one tenth of one percent the danger of regular cigarettes.

If every smoker in America used the products, the doctor believes, the death toll would fall from 400,000 a year to between 4000 and 400 a year.

Yet a new tobacco bill which has won the support of America's largest tobacco company is likely to ban alternative nicotine products in favour of regular cigarettes.

Dr Nitzkin explained that the bill would require research into alternative products which is physically impossible to do.

When we asked why the bill was being supported by legislators, he explained:

"... this piece of legislation has been sold to health organisations to endorse and to congressmen here in the United States to sponsor using a summary in the description of the bill which is extremely inaccurate and which does not reflect the actual impact the bill will have if passed."

The cost of this legislation will be high.

In removing alternatives to smoking, it is not only taking away smoker's freedom to choose a safer alternative - it could also be taking away their lives.