Commentary Harm reduction in tobacco control

The well-balanced paper on harm reduction by Gilmore et al. is a much needed briefing on the subject. Harm reduction through the use of possibly safer tobacco pro-ducts, such as the smokeless tobacco (ST) product snus, is now the most contentious challenge to public health workers. The invective characterizing much of the argument between protagonists and opposers has been extremely divi-sive. Although far from being the only polemical issue in tobacco control, it is quite different in that it currently involves the promotion by the tobacco industry of a non-medicinal recreational addictive form of nicotine. The issue is complicated by lack of experience outside of Sweden on the long-term safety of snus, including emerging evidence of possible adverse effects with high dose nicotine products. A further caution is that much of the remaining positive litera