Important Information about IQOS and Heated Tobacco
1. Cigarette smoking causes serious diseases and is addictive. Without question, the best decision any smoker can make is to quit tobacco and nicotine use altogether.
2. Minors should not use tobacco or nicotine in any form.
3. PMI’s smoke-free products are for adults who would otherwise continue to smoke or use other nicotine products.
4. We do not offer PMI’s smoke-free products to people who have never used tobacco or nicotine products or who have quit using tobacco and nicotine products. Our smoke-free products are not alternatives to quitting and are not designed as cessation aids.
5. PMI’s smoke-free products are not risk free and contain nicotine, which is addictive.
Safety Warnings & Instructions
Tobacco and Nicotine
· Tobacco sticks used with IQOS devices contain nicotine, which is addictive.
· IQOS is not risk-free. The best way to reduce tobacco- and nicotine-related health risks is to quit tobacco and nicotine use altogether.
· Some users of nicotine-containing products may experience abdominal pain, chest pain, choking sensation, cough, difficulty breathing, dizziness, dry mouth, dry throat, gingivitis, headache, malaise, nasal stuffiness, nausea, mouth irritation, palpitations, throat irritation, and vomiting.
· Nicotine-containing products should not be used by people who have or are at risk of heart disease, are diabetic, are epileptic, or are experiencing seizures.
· Nicotine-containing products should not be used during pregnancy or while breast-feeding. If you are pregnant, breast-feeding, or think you may be pregnant, you should quit tobacco and nicotine use altogether.
· Stopping smoking or switching to IQOS and its respective tobacco sticks may require the adjustment of the dosing of certain medicines (e.g. theophylline, clozapine, ropinirole).
· If you have questions about whether you should use IQOS given an existing health condition, consult a health care professional.
Use of tobacco sticks
· Only purchase IQOS and HEETS/TEREA tobacco sticks from your local or online IQOS stores or other authorized retailers.
· Only use IQOS ORIGINALS DUO or earlier generation devices with HEETS tobacco sticks. Never use IQOS with a cigarette or similar products. Doing so may cause injury.
· Only use IQOS ILUMA devices with TEREA tobacco sticks. Do not use HEETS with IQOS ILUMA. Do not ingest or disassemble TEREA™ sticks. This product contains a sharp metal part which can cause serious injury if swallowed. Keep out of reach of children.
· Do not modify HEETS/TEREA tobacco sticks in any way or add any substance to HEETS/TEREA tobacco sticks. Doing so may result in injury.
Battery Degradation
IQOS devices, including holders, contain a lithium-ion battery. The lithium-ion battery in the devices is a consumable component that degrades with usage and age. This is a natural process common to all rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. As the battery ages, the active ingredients inside the battery become less capable of retaining energy, resulting in a permanent decrease in maximum battery capacity and usable energy. In addition, the active ingredients become less effective in delivering energy, resulting in a decrease of the battery’s ability to provide sufficient power for electronic device components to operate. As a result, where relevant, the duration of experience may appear to be shorter, the number of puffs or experiences with one full charge may appear to be fewer, the second consecutive use might be shorter or missing.
The battery is a chemical system that requires certain temperature ranges during charge and discharge to work optimally and minimize battery capacity degradation over its lifetime. Although your device has a specific operating range within which the device will function, operating at the extreme ends of this range will degrade your battery faster. Your device comes with customized software to control the charging parameters in order to maximize the life of your device. These algorithms can support the longevity of your battery life, but they can still never fully mitigate the normal aging mechanisms of lithium batteries. High and low temperature operation of your device will accelerate the natural degradation of your battery. Even if you do not use your device the batteries contain chemical systems which can still degrade over time. In order to slow the battery degradation process, we recommend charging your device within the recommended temperature zone, not keeping it discharged for long periods of time and using the charging cables and power adaptors that come together with the device as per the user guides.
Most Frequent Questions regarding Important Information
Is using IQOS safe or risk-free? No, IQOS is not risk-free and delivers nicotine, which is addictive. The best option is to quit tobacco and nicotine use altogether. However, switching completely to IQOS is a better choice than continuing to smoke.
Is nicotine harmful? Nicotine is addictive. IQOS delivers nicotine in a comparable way to cigarettes. Our clinical studies show that the amount and rate of nicotine absorbed when using one tobacco stick with IQOS is comparable to that of smoking one cigarette.
How do you measure IQOS emissions, which you claim are reduced on average by 95% compared to the smoke of a 3R4F cigarette? We state that IQOS emits on average 90-95% lower levels of harmful chemicals compared to cigarettes. The percentage (90-95%) refers to the average reduction of the levels of certain constituents prioritized for action by renowned public health organizations such as the WHO and the US FDA, and which are found in IQOS tobacco vapor, when compared to the smoke from a 3R4F reference cigarette. The exact percentage reduction depends on the specific list being referenced. To this effect, we collect the tobacco vapor and smoke under the Health Canada Intense machine-smoking regime (55 mL puff volume, 2 second puff duration, 30 second interval puff) using a comparison on a per stick basis. Reduction calculations exclude nicotine.
What is this 3R4F cigarette you refer to? It is a cigarette independently designed by the University of Kentucky in the US for scientific research purposes. It is a comparator commonly used in tobacco research, which allows the data of a given study to be compared to that of another study. 3R4F research cigarettes are not commercially available to consumers.