A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel says dissolvable tobacco products could reduce health risks compared with smoking cigarettes but also have the potential to increase the number of tobacco users.

The panel said Thursday that people who exclusively use dissolvable tobacco products have a greatly reduced risk of cancer and respiratory illness compared with those who regularly smoke cigarettes.
The committee said dissolvable products could provide a societal benefit in reducing disease from tobacco use by decreasing the number of smokers through either cessation or preventing the first use of cigarettes. It however cautioned that increased use of dissolvable products also could lead to more smokers by serving as a bridge to cigarettes and/or reducing societal concern about the potential health risks of tobacco products in general.
As a result, the committee said it could not provide a definitive recommendation “since experience is limited and observational evidence on how dissolvable tobacco products might affect use of tobacco products is lacking.” (pi)