STOCKHOLM, 03 October 2024 - Brazil is “on the cusp of a public health miracle” as it prepares to legalise vapes in the ongoing war against smoking, according to international health experts.

Lifting a ban on vapes would throw a lifeline to millions of people who smoke, help to cut rampant illicit trade and offer protection to the underaged, the experts say.

Although vapes are currently prohibited in Brazil, they are widely available on the black market and youths have easy access to unregulated, potentially dangerous illicit products.

The National Congress is now considering a bill seeking to authorise the production, sale, import and use of these safer alternatives to cigarettes.

Dr. Delon Human, a global harm reduction expert and leader of Smoke Free Sweden, says: “To help people who smoke escape the deadly grip of cigarettes, it is essential to offer them less harmful alternatives.

“International evidence shows that Brazil’s plan to legalise vapes will dramatically reduce the country’s smoking rates and improve public health, while driving down illicit trade and the dangers it poses to the underaged.

“Like Sweden and New Zealand before them, Brazilian lawmakers can defeat smoking by making safer alternatives to cigarettes acceptable, accessible and affordable. They should pass this bill and begin saving lives as quickly as possible.”

Through the promotion of safer alternatives such as snus, nicotine pouches and vapes, Sweden has reduced its smoking rates by 55% over the past decade, resulting in a staggering 44% fewer smoking-related deaths compared to the rest of the European Union.

Since New Zealand's Ministry of Health endorsed vaping as a cessation tool in 2019, that country's smoking rates have nearly halved, serving as another example of how tobacco harm reduction (THR) policies can drive down smoking-related deaths and diseases.

“Some 191,000 Brazilians die prematurely every year due to smoking-related diseases, even though the tools exist to reduce that staggering toll,” Dr. Human says.

“Research has shown that incorporating THR into standard tobacco control would prevent 1,364,000 premature deaths in the next four decades.

“We are on the cusp of a public health miracle. Brazil should drop the prohibitions against vapes that are so evidently failing and embrace this life-saving opportunity.”