Wider adoption of harm reduction strategies could help solve the Asia tobacco crisis, bringing important public health gains to a region with 60 percent of the world’s smokers and 4 million smoking related deaths per year.

However, not enough governments in the region have fully embraced policies that allow smokers easier access to safer nicotine products (SNP) such as snus or e-cigarettes.

“By making it difficult, if not impossible, for current adult smokers to access SNP, governments are illegitimately interfering with an individual’s right to health,” reads the latest report on the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction (GSTHR).