We are committed to reducing the health impact of our business.

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THR is one of the most important public health movements in America.

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Adult smokers deserve to have choices beyond smoke or quit. Choice drives change.

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Reynolds American believes Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR) is an opportunity to benefit the public health. The goal of THR is to educate adults who smoke cigarettes about nicotine product alternatives, and to encourage adult smokers to switch if they are uninterested in quitting tobacco altogether.

Science Led Policy

THR is an important public health approach that has the potential to create broad societal benefits in the U.S. It’s a policy approach led by science and empowers adult smokers. We believe smokers need accurate information about — and access to — potentially less harmful alternatives.

Adult Smoker Choice

We believe adult tobacco consumers deserve to understand their options and to have access to non-combustible nicotine products that may reduce harm, including products such as nicotine vapor products, oral nicotine products and pouches, tobacco heating products and smokeless tobacco including snus.

Youth Access Prevention

We support programs that prevent youth tobacco use, like TruAge ^TM, Right Decisions Right Now and We Card. These programs, in conjunction with other, similar programs, have played an important role in the decline in tobacco use since 1991.

What We Stand For

We want to empower adult nicotine consumers to understand tobacco harm reduction. Because a world without harm reduction options does more harm.

Policymakers, regulators, health organizations, and industry need to work collectively to better understand THR and set a new regulatory framework, which:

Supports a science-based approach to THR.
Encourages industry-wide product standards.
Gives adult nicotine consumers accurate health information and access to non-combustible nicotine alternatives.
Regulates and taxes alternative nicotine products differently than cigarettes to improve public health.
Helps prevent youth from accessing tobacco and nicotine products.
Encourages research and innovation to develop adult nicotine products that may present less risk than cigarettes.

THR 101

Tobacco harm reduction (THR) is an evidence-based public health strategy intended to lower the health risks associated with using combustible tobacco products.

While definitions of THR may differ, broadly, THR as a public health strategy incorporates and accepts the following precepts:

While some existing approaches to discourage smoking initiation have reduced smoking rates, they have not eliminated smoking.

Innovative alternative nicotine products exist – vapor, tobacco heating, oral nicotine, smokeless – which may present less risk than cigarettes.

Tobacco harm reduction policies seek to inform adult smokers (unwilling to quit) about those alternatives, which could benefit both individual and public health.

Understand the Science

Adult smokers need accurate, science-based information about alternatives to combustible cigarettes. Doing so will empower the 31 million American adult smokers to make well-informed decisions about their options.

We can’t afford to ignore the well-established science at the core of tobacco harm reduction.

“Nicotine per se is not harmless, but is much less harmful than combusted tobacco use.”

Balfour, et al. (2021). Balancing Consideration of the Risks and Benefits of E-Cigarettes.

“While evidence suggests that vaping is currently increasing smoking cessation, the impact could be much larger if the public health community paid serious attention to vaping’s potential to help adult smokers, smokers received accurate information about the relative risks of vaping and smoking, and policies were designed with the potential effects on smokers in mind.”

Balfour, et al. (2021). Balancing Consideration of the Risks and Benefits of E-Cigarettes.

“Because evidence indicates that e-cigarette use can increase the odds of quitting smoking, many scientists, including this essay’s authors, encourage the health community, media, and policymakers to more carefully weigh vaping’s potential to reduce adult smoking-attributable mortality.”

Balfour, et al. (2021). Balancing Consideration of the Risks and Benefits of E-Cigarettes.

“The hazard to health arising from long-term vapour inhalation from the e-cigarettes available today is …

… unlikely to exceed 5% of the harm from smoking tobacco.”

Royal College of Physicians (2016). Nicotine without smoke: Tobacco harm reduction.

“Our new review reinforces the finding that …

… vaping is a fraction of the risk of smoking, at least 95% less harmful, and of negligible risk to bystanders.

Yet over half of smokers either falsely believe that vaping is as harmful as smoking or just don’t know.”

Public Health England (2018). E-cigarettes and heated tobacco products: evidence review.

Learn More

To learn more about the science behind different non-combustible product categories, including Reynolds published science and research, check out: www.reynoldsscience.com

There are many voices joining the THR dialogue. We encourage adults to consider all points of view and sources of information.

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The Policy Need for THR

“Even for e-cigarettes,

half of the public incorrectly believed them to be just as dangerous as cigarettes …

… and an overwhelming majority of respondents incorrectly believed smokeless tobacco to be just as dangerous as traditional cigarettes.”

Kiviniemi & Kozlowski (2015). Deficiencies in public understanding about tobacco harm reduction: results from a United States national survey.

“Public education campaigns are urgently needed for tobacco control professionals and consumers to increase awareness and understanding of the continuum of risk among tobacco products.”

Biener, et al. (2014). Public education about the relative harm of tobacco products: an intervention for tobacco control professionals.

“Nicotine per se is not harmless, but is much less harmful than combusted tobacco use.”

Balfour, et al. (2021). Balancing Consideration of the Risks and Benefits of E-Cigarettes.

“Because evidence indicates that e-cigarette use can increase the odds of quitting smoking,

many scientists, including this essay’s authors, encourage the health community, media, and policymakers to more carefully weigh vaping’s potential to reduce adult smoking-attributable mortality.”

Balfour, et al. (2021). Balancing Consideration of the Risks and Benefits of E-Cigarettes.

“These results suggest that the Massachusetts flavor ban and tax did not reduce e-cigarette consumption in the Greater Boston area,

and that messaging questioning the safety of e-cigarettes led to an increase in combustible cigarette use. This suggests the need for health authorities to reconsider how they communicate the relative risks of smoking and vaping.”

Katchmar, et al. (2021). Effect of Massachusetts House Bill No. 4196 on electronic cigarette use: a mixed-methods study.

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