The Asia-Pacific area sits on the centre of the worldwide smoking epidemic. House to nearly all of the world’s people who smoke, it additionally bears a disproportionate share of the roughly eight million deaths brought on by tobacco use annually. Flamable cigarettes stay the one most deadly shopper product in widespread authorized use, killing a big proportion of long-term customers. But on the similar time, an increasing physique of scientific proof exhibits that non-combustible nicotine alternate options—corresponding to vaping gadgets, heated tobacco merchandise, and oral nicotine—can dramatically scale back hurt for individuals who would in any other case proceed smoking.
For a tobacco hurt discount (THR) viewers, the tragedy will not be a scarcity of proof however a failure of coverage. Throughout a lot of Asia, governments proceed to pursue prohibitionist approaches that limit or ban safer alternate options, usually below strain from worldwide well being our bodies and advocacy teams. The result’s a set of insurance policies that protect cigarette dominance, gasoline illicit markets, and undermine public well being objectives.
Why is the truth that cigarettes are the actual drawback ignored?
The science is evident: nicotine itself will not be the first reason for smoking-related illness. Most cancers, heart problems, and persistent respiratory sickness are pushed by the poisonous by-products of combustion—tar, carbon monoxide, and hundreds of dangerous chemical substances produced when tobacco is burned. For people who smoke who can not or don’t need to give up nicotine solely, switching to non-combustible merchandise can scale back publicity to those toxins by a big margin when merchandise are correctly regulated.
Nations within the area which have acknowledged the chance continuum, specifically Japan and New Zealand, have obtained constructive outcomes supporting their methods. Japan’s expertise with heated tobacco merchandise has coincided with one of many steepest declines in cigarette gross sales ever recorded in a significant market.
Evaluations by Public Well being England (now the UK Well being Safety Company) and the Royal Faculty of Physicians conclude that vaping is considerably much less dangerous than smoking. In Europe, Sweden’s lengthy acceptance of snus has helped push smoking charges to the bottom worldwide, alongside correspondingly low charges of smoking-related illness. These outcomes usually are not theoretical, they’re measurable, population-level outcomes.
Intentions versus outcomes
Regardless of this proof, a number of Asian governments have moved in the other way. Vietnam launched a complete ban on reduced-risk merchandise in 2025 and later tightened restrictions. Bangladesh adopted with related measures. In Thailand and India, outright bans have been in place for years. Malaysia and the Philippines are contemplating heavy taxation and strict product limits that threat making safer alternate options much less accessible than cigarettes themselves.
On the similar time, India continues to permit the authorized sale of cigarettes, bidis, and smokeless tobacco, merchandise accountable for monumental illness burdens and important healthcare prices.
The sample is constant and well-documented in coverage analysis: when safer nicotine merchandise are banned or priced out of attain, people who smoke don’t merely give up en masse. As an alternative, cigarette consumption stays entrenched, whereas illicit markets emerge to satisfy demand. Research analyzing prohibition in India and Thailand present that vaping merchandise proceed to flow into broadly regardless of bans, sourced by way of smuggling networks and offered with out age controls, high quality requirements, or shopper protections.
India presents a very stark instance. The Prohibition of Digital Cigarettes Act, 2019 outlawed the manufacture, import, and sale of vapes, but enforcement gaps have allowed a thriving black market to develop. Units, principally smuggled from China, are available in main cities, on-line platforms, and even native outlets. Information from the Directorate of Income Intelligence present a pointy rise in seizures over latest years, reflecting not declining demand, however increasing illicit commerce.
Public well being consultants have warned that this underground market will increase dangers, notably for younger folks. With no regulatory oversight, merchandise could also be adulterated, poorly manufactured, or mislabelled. Considerations have been raised about gadgets containing unknown components and even narcotics, dangers which are far larger than these related to regulated nicotine vaping merchandise.
On the similar time, India continues to permit the authorized sale of cigarettes, bidis, and smokeless tobacco, merchandise accountable for monumental illness burdens and important healthcare prices. Critics argue that the ban has grow to be symbolic reasonably than efficient, sustaining a multibillion-dollar shadow economic system whereas doing little to scale back smoking.
Will Pakistan observe swimsuit?
In the meantime ignoring these information, its neighbour to the North: Pakistan, is now transferring towards complete controls on vaping merchandise. A senate committee has endorsed new laws which on paper contains acquainted components: an age-of-sale restrict of 18, restrictions on gross sales close to colleges, bans on promoting, product requirements, and penalties for smuggling.
But, from a hurt discount perspective, the small print matter. Treating vaping precisely like flamable tobacco, together with blanket promoting bans and public-use restrictions dangers sending a message that each one nicotine merchandise are equally dangerous. Proof from a number of nations means that over-restrictive frameworks scale back switching from cigarettes, particularly amongst lower-income people who smoke who’re most affected by tobacco-related illness. If regulation focuses narrowly on youth visibility whereas failing to make sure grownup entry to reasonably priced, interesting alternate options, Pakistan could replicate the identical errors seen elsewhere within the area.
In the end failing people who smoke who need assistance quitting
The reluctance to embrace THR in Asia is usually framed as precautionary, however critics argue it displays an ideological resistance to nicotine reasonably than a science-based evaluation of threat. Hurt discount rules are broadly accepted in different areas of drug coverage—needle change applications, opioid substitution remedy, and supervised consumption websites—however are often rejected when utilized to tobacco.
Reviews from organisations corresponding to Data-Motion-Change and the World State of Tobacco Hurt Discount persistently present that nations embracing proportionate regulation obtain quicker declines in smoking than these pursuing prohibition. Conversely, bans correlate with persistent smoking charges and rising illicit commerce. With thousands and thousands of smoking-related deaths annually—most of them in Asia—the results of those coverage selections are profound. Yearly of delay in permitting safer alternate options interprets into preventable illness and demise.
Excessive Smoking Charges Are Proof of Coverage Failure, Not Progress
The central coverage query going through the Asia-Pacific area is not whether or not safer nicotine merchandise ought to exist, however whether or not governments are prepared to manage them realistically. Efficient frameworks prioritise product requirements, age enforcement, correct threat communication, and differential taxation that displays relative hurt.
Prohibition has not eradicated demand for nicotine; it has merely ensured that probably the most harmful type, flamable cigarettes, stays dominant. For a area carrying the heaviest burden of smoking-related hurt, embracing tobacco hurt discount will not be a concession to trade or ideology. It’s a public well being crucial.
How Cultural Frames Form Tobacco Hurt Discount (or Lack Of) in Asia
