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'Incredible' milestone reached as Sweden becomes a smoke-free country (www.thelocal.se)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/europe@feddit.org
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[–] 68 points 2 months ago* (8 children)

It's a paywalled article, so here's an archival link

https://archive.is/8PwGR

"Smoke-free" in this case means fewer than 5% of people smoke daily. As of 2025 that figure stands at 4.8% in Sweden

The proportion of daily smokers dropped from 16 to 4.8 percent between 2003 and 2025, according to the new report.

Meanwhile, Sweden has seen a sharp increase in the use of snus in recent years – the small nicotine pouches popular in Sweden – a factor that the tobacco industry often highlights as a major reason for Sweden's low proportion of smokers.

Fewer smokers is good of course, but I am not sure if the consumption of tabacco is really going down significantly. It rather seems to be moving from cigarettes to snus, which I'm not sure is a good thing.

Snus is banned in the rest of the EU. Sweden has an exemption on that ban, which they pre-emptively carved out when they were in talks for joining the EU

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  • [–] 17 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Fewer smokers is good of course, but I am not sure if the consumption of tabacco is really going down significantly. It rather seems to be moving from cigarettes to snus, which I’m not sure is a good thing.

    It is undeniably a good thing. Smoking increases your risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease by a lot. Snus does not significantly increase your risk of lung or oropharyngeal cancer. Nor does it increase your incidence of strokes or heart attacks. Nor does it lead to copd. More important than a lot lower risks for people who choose to use tobacco products, it eliminates all adverse effects on people like me who do not want any tobacco exposure.

    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12954-019-0335-1

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  • [–] 21 points 2 months ago* (3 children)

    Snus is also a contributing factor for cancer, and it will absolutely wreck your gum health, lets not pretend that is a faultfree solution.

    https://news.ki.se/one-in-three-cases-of-oral-cancer-are-due-to-smokeless-tobacco

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33347584/

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37480210/

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  • [–] 16 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    From your very first link:

    It is interesting to note that the proportion in northern Europe is very low, as 'Swedish snus' does not seem to be linked to oral cancer. The results are of great importance both from a global health perspective and in terms of the health of migrants." says Cecilia Magnusson, co-author of the publication.

    And the article in the Lancet also says:

    "Evidence on the risk of oral cancer associated with using Swedish snusβ€”a type of moist tobacco most commonly consumed in Nordic countries as pouches held in the mouthβ€”is currently inconclusive, with several studies suggesting a significantly increased risk of up to three-times among ever daily snus users compared with never daily users, and others suggesting no statistically significant higher risk among current users compared with non-users, due to the much lower levels of NNN and NNK than in other smokeless tobacco products."

    Data from their own study shows that PAF-associated oral cancers are lower in Norway and Sweden compared to Northern Europe as a whole, despite them famously being the main consumers of snus.

    I'm not saying snus is healthy. Using snus is definitely worse than not using any tobacco at all. But it is without a doubt a lot healthier than smoking.

    Like I said in my first comment though, this is really of secondary importance. The most important thing is that you're not increasing the cancer risk of people who happen to be in your vicinity by using snus. If every smoker switched to snus, the world would be a better place.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago

    The most important thing is that you’re not increasing the cancer risk of people who happen to be in your vicinity by using snus.

    Yup, certainly the most important for me, because I will never willingly put any of this crap into my mouth and lungs.

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  • [–] [S] 10 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Sorry, wasn't paywalled for me. Would have provided similar link otherwise.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago

    Here is America we hit a similar milestone last year, with fewer than 10% of the population smoking. That's the first time it's gone below 10%.

    Then I remembered that the article didn't mention vaping, which is way up. It's good that smoking is down, but if most of it is just being replaced by a product we know nearly nothing about, I'm not sure how much of an improvement that really is.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Synthetic nicotine (non-tobacco) snus, which are usually just called nicotine pouches or "all-white", are not banned for consumption in the rest of the EU. A lot of countries have bans on the sale of flavoured nicotine or menthol nicotine products due to menthol cigarettes which covers a lot of all-white nicotine pouches but you can still consume them.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Except for in France for example, where consumption of tobacco-free snus is now illegal.

    https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/actualites/A18450?lang=en

    But of course, they explicitly allow chewing tobacco, which is 100x worse for your health than tobacco snus.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Good to know - Crazy they did that but you can still buy tobacco.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    The general idea of the snus-bans is that snus is not commonly consumed outside of the Nordics, so it's better to pre-emptively ban it. They are trying to nip it in the bud before it becomes a problem.

    Cigarettes are socially and culturally engrained after a century of normalization, and it's a lot more difficult to ban it. Even vapes are already somewhat at the stage where it's nornalized enough that outright banning it becomes difficult.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    It's allowed in Finland now too because too many young people were just smuggling it in from Sweden.

    Nasty as shit, I see 20 year olds with rotten looking gums, leaving the packs everywhere.

    But God forbid cannabis is allowed /s

    Government hypocrisy. Or corruption.

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