01
Combustion is what kills.
Cigarette smoke carries thousands of chemicals, dozens of them carcinogenic. Nicotine is addictive and not harmless, but it is not what causes cancer.
Tobacco harm reduction · civil society
Nicotine is not smoke
We have the courage to discuss a subject everyone pretends doesn’t exist. We are former smokers, and we want no one else to die from combustion.
174,000
deaths a year in Brazil caused by smoking. Nearly 480 a day.
The deadliest product is legal, taxed and inspected. Up to half of long-term smokers die because of it.
Source: Brazil’s National Cancer Institute (INCA), via Agência Brasil (Aug 2025)
What we stand for
02
Science has done the math.
The Cochrane review found, with high certainty, that nicotine vapes help more people quit smoking than patches and gum: about 9 in 100 quit, against 6.
03
Brazil is going the wrong way.
We banned the alternatives, and they are everywhere: no health oversight, no enforceable age limit, supplied by organised crime.
We banned everything except using it.
You cannot ban nicotine use in a country where cigarettes are legal. The result is a ban that works as a free-for-all: no nicotine limit, no rules on flavours, packaging or format.
100%
of the e-cigarettes in use in Brazil have, at some point, passed through illegality. Making, importing and selling them is banned.
ManufacturingBANNED
ImportingBANNED
SellingBANNED
AdvertisingBANNED
Bringing in your luggageBANNED
UsingALLOWED
Source: Anvisa Resolution RDC 855/2024
Fact-checks!
What the authorities said, side by side with what the original source says. No adjectives. You draw the conclusion.
Fact-check #01EVALI: the missing causeIn 2020 the CDC concluded the outbreak was linked to vitamin E acetate in THC products. Brazil’s official 2025 guidance mentions neither.Read the fact-check →
Fact-check #02“No evidence” versus CochraneAnvisa stated that vapes do not help people quit smoking, and dismissed the field’s most authoritative review in a single sentence.Read the fact-check →
What the world has already learned
Countries that treated nicotine with science brought smoking down. Those that pretended it didn’t exist handed the market to crime.
Sweden
Uses nicotine at the European average, but in forms that don’t burn, such as snus and pouches. It has the lowest smoking rate in Europe.
United Kingdom
Used Cochrane and independent reviews to bring vaping into the public health system, with the Swap to Stop programme.
United States
Pre-market authorisation, a minimum age of 21 and enforcement. Vaping among students fell to 5.2% in 2025, the lowest level in over a decade.
Australia
Made vapes prescription-only. The illegal market took over and health oversight was lost.
Full dossier, with all sources, in progress.
Nicotine is not for minors.
And only a regulated market can ask for ID at the point of sale. Today’s ban sells to anyone.
Resources
Zine · in Portuguese
Tudo é sobre nós (It’s all about us)
What harm reduction is, what nicotine does, the Brazilian landscape and the alternatives to cigarettes. Includes an interview with psychologist Mônica Gorgulho.
Podcast · in Portuguese
Voices of harm reduction
We talk to every side of the debate: consumers, experts, science and health professionals, former regulators and people from industry. A selection of Vaporacast episodes, with guests such as Ingrid Dragan Taricano, Alessandra Bastos and Mônica Gorgulho.
No one should get sick just because they use nicotine.