ABSTRACT
Defi ning tobacco smoking is, at its most simplistic, unproblematic: ‘Tobacco products are products made entirely or partly of leaf tobacco as raw material, which are intended to be smoked, sucked, chewed or snuffed. All contain the highly addictive psychoactive ingredient, nicotine’ (WHO 2007b). However, of course the term suggests two elements: ‘smoking’ and ‘tobacco’. So do both have to be in existence? If tobacco alone is suffi cient then, of course, either tobacco snuff or chewing tobacco could (or should) be included. If it is simply ‘smoking’ then herbal cigarettes would be safe, as would other non-tobacco products. To counter this, a variety of legislatures have ensured that both smoking and tobacco are included. For example, the State of Queensland, Australia, passed amendment of the Tobacco Products (Prevention of Supply to Children) Act 1998:
it has been established that the deliberate inhalation of smoke from the combustion of any matter is injurious to health, whether or not the smoking compound contains addictive substances such as nicotine. Furthermore, the smoking of non-tobacco products, such as herbal cigarettes, leads to at least a similar degree of exposure to carbon monoxide and tar as conventional cigarettes.
