The Social Justice Case for Nicotine Harm Reduction
Nicotine harm reduction is a social justice issue. The populations with the highest smoking rates—the poor, the mentally ill, the incarcerated—are the populations least able to quit. Harm reduction serves justice.
Smoking is concentrated among the marginalized—the poor, the mentally ill, the incarcerated, the Indigenous. These populations are the least able to quit and the most harmed by policies that restrict reduced-risk alternatives. **Nicotine harm reduction is a social justice issue: providing safer alternatives to the people who cannot or will not quit reduces the health disparities that the abstinence-only approach has widened. The public health establishment that claims to care about equity should be the strongest advocate for harm reduction. It is, instead, the strongest opponent.**
