TY - JOUR T1 - What ifs: and what now? JF - Tobacco Control JO - Tob Control SP - 593 LP - 594 DO - 10.1136/tc-2022-057662 VL - 31 IS - 5 AU - Ruth E Malone Y1 - 2022/09/01 UR - http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/31/5/593.abstract N2 - Musing on Twitter about the ongoing struggles within the tobacco control community over the role and regulation of newer tobacco and nicotine products, I observed recently that it would be so much easier to find consensus on those issues if the tobacco industry would just stay out of it. What if those working in public health could agree among ourselves that the number one goal—the very top priority—should be addressing the structural, political and social dynamics that sustain the tobacco epidemic, all of which have industry disease-promoting activities at their root? Then we might find some unanimity in eradicating the industry’s influence and reducing the harm caused by its products while doing more to eliminate the most well-researched, most marketed and most deadly commercial tobacco products rather than arguing endlessly over the science and public health regulatory implications of multiple types of e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products and various new nicotine products.Instead, in too many places, tobacco control discourse has devolved to a messy catfight focused on whether we should enthusiastically encourage use of more types of addiction products while accepting continued widespread sales of cigarettes and assuming the market will solve everything if only we get out of its way.This is precisely what the tobacco industry planned, beginning with long-term strategic plans developed more than 20 years ago to fracture the solidarity of the tobacco control movement.1 2 Tobacco companies have long exacerbated and exploited divisions within public health about the proper role and nature of ‘harm reduction’ … ER -