FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 

A burning cigarette releases more than 6,000 chemicals, about 100 of which have been classified by public health experts as harmful or potentially harmful. It is the high levels of these harmful chemicals present in cigarette smoke that are the primary cause of smoking-related diseases.

Smoke-free products are alternatives to cigarettes that do not burn tobacco and therefore do not produce smoke, which is the primary cause of smoking-related disease. Examples include heated tobacco products, e-cigarettes and oral smokeless products, and they use different technologies to deliver nicotine without burning tobacco and creating smoke. As they do not burn, they have the potential to be less harmful than continued smoking.

The best choice is to never start smoking, or to quit altogether if you do smoke. While addictive and not risk-free, smoke-free products have the potential to present less risk of harm than continued smoking, as they don’t produce smoke and emit significantly lower levels of harmful chemicals.

Within this website, you can find more information about alternatives to smoking on the Be Educated page. 

Heated tobacco products (HTPs) are smoke-free products that heat tobacco to temperatures well below those reached by burning a cigarette. HTPs produce an aerosol that releases nicotine and flavors from the tobacco, without producing smoke. 

E-cigarettes, also called e-vapor products or vapes, are a smoke-free category of products without tobacco. These battery-powered devices vaporize a liquid solution also known as an e-liquid which can contain nicotine and/or flavors. 

Oral smokeless products refer to tobacco (known as snus) and tobacco-free, nicotine-containing smoke-free products designed for oral use. The product is generally placed in between the cheek/upper lip and the gum, which allows for nicotine to be absorbed through the oral mucosa. 

In any given year, more than nine out of ten smokers will continue to smoke. This means that leading public health agencies estimate that there will still be approximately one billion smokers in 2025—roughly the same number as today.

Today, scientifically substantiated better alternatives to smoking exist that do not burn tobacco. As a result, they emit fewer and lower levels of harmful and potentially harmful chemicals compared to cigarette smoke. While not risk-free, they are a much better choice than cigarettes for adults who would otherwise continue to smoke.

If these alternatives to smoking are made available in additional to existing tobacco control measures, and enough smokers switch to them, we can more rapidly achieve a significant milestone in global health—a world without cigarettes.