Nicotineproducten zonder tabak

Reactie

Vraag1

I am family doctor with more than 20 years of working experience. I am not smoking cigarettes and never had.
Croatia has one of the highest rates of smoking among adults in EU. Cigarette smokers were always one of the greatest challenges in my practice. And especially children who were, and still are, victims of cigarette smoke in their houses.
During these 20 years of working as a family doctor, I've met patients who wanted to quit smoking, but couldn't, and those who didn't even want to quit. Small percentage of my patients/smokers quit smoking, and some of them started again to smoke for different reasons.
Nicotine replacement therapy, which helped only a few of my patients quit smoking, was never widely used in my country. But since new nicotine products appeared (nicotine pouches, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products) many of my patients (even my colleagues) succeeded in quitting smoking. But what mostly made me happy is the fact that using those new nicotine products smoke is not produced and people who are not smoking, but are forced to be near smokers (in their houses or in working places), are now safe.
When talking about nicotine addiction and banning nicotine pouches my opinion is that nicotine (in nicotine pouches and other new nicotine products) is harmful and addictive, but far less than cigarette smoke (or even illegal substances). People need stimulants. People want to use stimulants. So they will use one or the other. Banning those that are less harmful will only lead to increase in using more harmful ones. Or getting banned product from other countries or on the black market. So I think that banning is not a solution of the problem. All those products that contain nicotine need to be regulated, not banned.
Ljiljana Cenan, MD