For the first in two decades, US smoking rates have risen amid the persistent lobbying against safer nicotine alternatives such as vaping products.

In a blog post on the Consumer Choice Center’s (CCC) website, the group’s deputy director Yaël Ossowski said he believes the incessant crusade against safer nicotine alternatives is behind the recent rise in smoking rates. “Nothing has been more egregious and harmful in our current age than the public health lobby’s persistent denialism of the harm reduction value of nicotine vaping products and other alternatives to cigarettes.”

The Federal Trade Commission’s 2020 Cigarette Report indicated that cigarette sales in the US are the highest they have ever been in two decades. The total number of cigarettes sold by major manufacturers rose 0.4 percent in 2020 to 203.7 billion units from 2019. “This is the the first increase in cigarette sales reported in the last 20 years. Smoking is up for the first time in a generation. The public health lobby is to blame,” said Ossowski.

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