We are on the side of consumers for safer nicotine alternatives

The European Commission has set its sights on nicotine pouches. In a new proposal on EU‑wide tobacco taxation, Brussels wants to force Sweden to raise the tax on nicotine pouches by around 500 percent – despite the products being tobacco‑free and despite Sweden having the lowest smoking rate in the EU.  The EU’s new Tobacco Taxation Directive is not a technical adjustment. It is a frontal attack on smoke‑free nicotine products – and on Sweden’s successful harm‑reduction model.  For the first time, nicotine pouches are singled out as a product category […]

The Swedish experience of harm reduction is well known, but what is happening in the rest of the world? As global institutions mark 20 years of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, countries are finding out the answer to an important question: Does tobacco control work better when it embraces harm reduction […]

Pouch Patrol today announces the first-ever Ostrich Award, a satirical prize for policymakers who ignore clear evidence on tobacco harm reduction. This year’s recipient: EU Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi, who recently declared:  “The WHO has observed that nicotine-containing products, in particular e-cigarettes and nicotine sachets, generate substances known to cause cancer and expose users to […]

A new report from the Nordic Council contains compelling evidence that smokeless nicotine products—such as snus and nicotine pouches—are not a gateway to smoking. In fact, they appear to be helping drive smoking rates down across the region. What is the Gateway Hypothesis? The hypothesis originated in the 1970s–1980s in drug policy debates and was […]