郑恺图片最帅的图片:安全香烟的诱惑 Pursuit of a safer cigarette gathers paces

When Sir Terry Leahy, the former chief executive of UK supermarket chain Tesco, first heard about a small British start-up called Kind Consumer he felt sure he had found a gap in the market.

当英国超市连锁店特易购(Tesco)前首席执行官特里?莱希爵士(Sir Terry Leahy)第一次听说一家名为Kind Consumer的英国初创企业时，他就确信自己找到了一个市场缺口。

Here was a company with a very big idea – a safe way to get smokers their nicotine fix – that was struggling to win backers in the venture capital community.

这家公司有一个非常宏大的创意：一种让吸烟者获得吸食尼古丁那种兴奋感的安全方式，但这种创意很难获得风险投资行业的支持。

Sir Terry says: “It may be a weakness in the [VC] investment model: if people are looking for three-year pay-backs, that’s not appropriate for really big ideas.” The former Tesco chief decided to make it one of his first private investments in retirement.

特里爵士表示：“这可能是（风投）投资模式的弱点：如果人们希望3年就获得投资回报，那么对于真正伟大的创意而言，这并不合适。”他决定将该公司作为退休后的首笔私人投资。

British American Tobacco also appears to be taking the long view. Its subsidiary Nicoventures, formed this year to commercialise non-tobacco nicotine products, has signed its first commercial contract with Kind Consumer. It is a distribution agreement for a device that uses miniaturised breath-operated inhalation technology rather than tobacco to deposit nicotine in the lungs.

英美烟草公司(British American Tobacco)似乎也持长远观点。其子公司Nicoventures已与Kind Consumer签订首份商业合同，Nicoventures于今年组建，致力于非香烟尼古丁产品的商业化。此合同是一项产品分销协议，该产品采用小型化、由呼吸控制的吸入技术，而非让尼古丁沉积在肺中的香烟。

That is a big step for BAT into the field of smoking cessation and “harm-reduction”. Philip Morris International has made similar moves. Last week it added to its portfolio a patent developed by a Duke University professor for a “technology employing a unique method for delivering a nicotine-containing aerosol”.

这是英美烟草公司进军戒烟和“减害”领域的关键一步。菲利普莫里斯国际公司(Philip Morris International)也采取了类似的行动。最近，该公司的投资组合中加入了杜克大学(Duke University)一位教授开发的专利，涉及一项“利用一种生产含有尼古丁气雾剂的独特方法的技术”。

The companies hope not only to capitalise on the ￡2.2bn ($3.6bn) global market for smoking cessation products, but also to form products so compelling for smokers that they they could also target the ￡263bn global tobacco market.

这些公司不仅希望利用规模22亿英镑 (合36亿美元)的全球戒烟产品市场，还希望开发出对吸烟者颇具吸引力的产品，这样还可以把目标瞄准价值2630亿英镑的全球烟草市场。

The idea of a safer cigarette is not new. Tobacco groups have toyed with the idea for 50 years but with no serious breakthroughs from either a health or a business perspective.

有关更为安全的香烟的想法并不新鲜。50年来，烟草集团一直以一种有些儿戏的态度考虑这一想法，但从健康或商业的角度而言，都没有实现任何真正的突破。

RJ Reynolds’ efforts to develop a safer “smokeless” cigarette, described in the book Barbarians at the Gate, were typical: the Premier, which cost more than $800m to develop, flopped in less than a year.

《门口的野蛮人》(Barbarians at the Gate)一书中，对于雷诺烟草公司(RJ Reynolds)开发更安全“无烟”香烟努力的描述具有代表性：耗资逾8亿美元开发的Premier，不到一年就宣告失败。

Alex Hearn, founder of Kind Consumer, argues that success this time around depends on more than delivering a safe nicotine hit. The rituals surrounding smoking must also be mimicked, he says.

Kind Consumer创始人亚历克斯?赫恩(Alex Hearn)辩称，这一次的成功不仅将取决于能否开发出一种安全的尼古丁热销产品。他表示，还必须模仿一些吸烟的规矩。

Mr Hearn adds that the products must be affordable and available by the same channels as cigarettes; that means regulatory approval is paramount – an area where electronic cigarettes have stumbled.

赫恩补充称，这些产品不能太贵，而且可以通过与购买香烟同样的渠道获得；这意味着监管批准最为重要——在这一领域，电子香烟一直步履维艰。

Some observers argue that non-tobacco nicotine products which genuinely recreate the smoking experience could help to make up for declining volumes of cigarette sales in the developed world. Many analysts consider the prospect so remote, and potential revenues so small against tobacco, they do not include them in growth models.

一些观察人士辩称，真正再现吸烟体验的非香烟尼古丁产品，可能有利于弥补发达国家香烟销售额下滑所造成的影响。很多分析师认为这一前景非常遥远，而且相对于烟草而言的潜在收入很低，都不值得列入增长模型。

For those reasons, perhaps, neither Imperial Tobacco nor Japan Tobacco has made public forays into the harm-reduction field. Instead, the market is dominated by pharmaceutical groups such as GlaxoSmithKline with its NiQuitin products, and Johnson & Johnson with Nicorette.

或许是出于这些原因，帝国烟草(Imperial Tobacco)和日本烟草(Japan Tobacco)都没有公开进军减害领域。这一市场反而由制药集团主宰，例如葛兰素史克(GlaxoSmithKline)的NiQuitin产品以及强生(Johnson & Johnson)的Nicorette。

Some experts argue pharma companies are not the most appropriate distributors. “How can you move these things to consumers?” asks David Sweanor, professor of law at University of Ottawa and a specialist in tobacco and public health. “The cigarette companies know smokers better than anyone else.”

一些专家辩称，制药公司并不是最合适的分销商。“如何能够将这些产品提供给消费者？”渥太华大学(University of Ottawa)法学教授、烟草和公共健康专家戴维?斯韦诺(David Sweanor)表示，“烟草企业比任何人都更了解吸烟者。”

His is a divisive view within the antismoking lobby. Many activists, particularly in the US, worry that “reduced harm” nicotine products will still hook people, and may serve as a stepping stone to tobacco. Simon Chapman and Ross MacKenzie at the Unviersity of Sydney’s school of public health point out that most people who successfully stop smoking do so without smoking-cessation products. They worry that to quit “is becoming increasingly pathologised”.

在反对吸烟的游说阵营中，人们对他的观点有着不同意见。很多激进主义者（尤其是在美国）担心，“减害”尼古丁产品仍会让人上瘾，可能会成为香烟的“铺垫”。悉尼大学(Unviersity of Sydney)公共健康学院的西蒙?查普曼(Simon Chapman)和罗斯?麦肯兹(Ross MacKenzie)指出，多数成功的戒烟者，都是在没有使用戒烟产品的情况下戒掉的。他们担心，戒烟“正变得越来越病理化”。

Even those open to alternative delivery systems for nicotine – an idea embraced more readily in the UK, including by the government – are deeply wary of tie-ups with tobacco groups. “It wouldn’t be beyond Big Tobacco to buy into these inventions to make sure that they don’t get off the ground,” said one tobacco control activist.

即使那些对另类尼古丁吸食方式持开放态度的人（这一理念在英国更容易得到支持，包括政府），也对于与烟草集团的合作深感担忧。一位控烟领域的激进主义者表示：“大型烟草集团很可能收购这些发明，确保它们无法取得进展。”

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of antismoking group Action on Smoking and Health, argues that consumer goods groups would make more acceptable partners for inventors, and also have the marketing and sales savvy the tobacco groups boast.

禁烟组织Action on Smoking and Health首席执行官黛博拉?阿诺特(Deborah Arnott)辩称，消费品集团将是发明者更可接受的合作伙伴，同时也具备烟草集团引以为傲的营销及销售能力。

BAT points out that Nicoventures is a stand-alone business, with “access to expertise within the group but [at] an arms-length basis.” Mr Hearn says that while he and his colleagues were wary at first, they believe one of their goals – the product be commercially viable, as readily available at the petrol station as the chemist’s – will benefit from BAT’s involvement.

英美烟草指出，Nicoventures是一项独立业务，“有权使用该集团内部的专业技能，但要保持一定距离。”赫恩表示，尽管他和同事们一开始持谨慎态度，但他们认为，自己的目标之一——该产品能够在商业上变得可行，在药店买到它、就像在加油站买汽油那样容易——将得益于英美烟草的参与。

Dr Sweanor forecasts the race for regulator-approved, user-friendly products that provide nicotine without killing them to people who crave it will speed up. “The global market for cigarettes is half a trillion dollars a year,” he says. “People say: ‘If we only get 2 per cent of the market, that’s not bad: we make billions of dollars, save millions of lives and maybe win a Nobel Prize while we’re at it’.”

斯韦诺预测，在得到监管者批准、且消费者易于使用的提供尼古丁的产品（而不是减少尼古丁含量）方面，竞争将会提速。“全球香烟市场的规模为每年5000亿美元，”他表示，“人们说：‘如果我们只获得2%的市场份额，这并不算糟：如果我们做到了这一点，我们将会赚取数十亿美元，挽救数百万人的生命，或许还能获得诺贝尔奖(Nobel Prize)’。”