WASHINGTON – While
heat-not-burn tobacco products are still waiting for their U.S. debut, the
products have found a receptive audience oversees, Healthline
reports. Recent San Diego University research indicates that such non-burning
tobacco products could soon hit U.S. store shelves.
Heat-not-burn
tobacco products use real tobacco that’s heated via a battery-powered heating
element to produce an inhalable aerosol. Most of the major
tobacco firms have been dabbling in heat-not-burn and other alternative
tobacco products to gain ground as smoking levels continue to drop.
The U.S. Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) has been evaluating IQOS, the heat-not-burn
technology from Philip Morris International. The agency will make its ruling by
year’s end on whether IQOS can be marketed as a “modified risk tobacco
product.” Currently, heat-not-burn tobacco products are being tested in Europe
and Asia, and have received a positive reception in Japan over the past three
years.
Meanwhile, the
university’s research found strong interest in heat-not-burn tobacco products.
“[Google searches] are probably a stronger indicator of interest than if you
just asked on a survey,” said John Ayers, a lead study author and a research
professor at San Diego State. “Here we’re observing people seeking out
information on the product, potentially trying to buy the product.”
Their research
appears to indicate that heat-not-burn tobacco products could eclipse
electronic cigarettes. Today, in Japan each month, there are between 6 and 7
million “heat-not-burn” searches on Google—two years earlier, nearly no searches
under those terms occurred at all. Ayers said this type of data has been used
to predict album and movie sales too.