EU

In 2020, the European Parliament approved the creation of a Special Committee on Beating Cancer (BECA). BECA concluded its work on 9 December 2021, by adopting a report with calls for stronger EU action against cancer, on its last meeting before the end of BECA’s mandate. In the report, BECA introduces for the first time a tobacco harm reduction perspective on EU level, but regrettably also recommends measures counterproductive to this aim.

A new report by David Sundén, Doctor of Economics from Stockholm School of Economics, finds that the ban on snus (oral smokeless tobacco) in the EU has a highly negative effect on public health. The research looks at the relationship between smoking, mortality from smoking-related illnesses and snus as a risk-reducing alternative.

Nicotine pouches are a less harmful alternative to smoking. Switching from cigarettes to nicotine pouches could save hundreds of thousands of European lives every year. But how should these products be regulated? Will the EU ban nicotine pouches as is the case for Swedish snus?