Former Health Advisor to WHO Director-General: Alternative tobacco products protect smokers from the risks of traditional cigarettes… and provide them with a real chance to quit.
Countries around the world are striving to address the dangers of smoking to preserve the public health of their citizens, considering it as a fundamental axis in achieving development across various sectors, as there is no growth without health.
In this context, the Swedish government has announced that it would decrease the excise tax on snus by 20%. This comes within the country’s framework of its smoking cessation strategy, which is based on the concept of harm reduction. The government has emphasized that this move confirms that snus is less harmful than traditional cigarettes.
Sweden has achieved promising positive results and is on the verge of officially declaring itself a smoke-free country. This is given its adoption of the harm reduction approach, which is based on the availability of various types of alternative tobacco products that help people quit smoking, in addition to being less harmful, according to many scientific studies.
Sweden’s smoking cessation strategy has also resulted in 44% fewer tobacco-related deaths compared to other EU countries. The lung cancer cases have also decreased by 41%, and the number of deaths attributed to various types of cancer has decreased by 38%.
Sweden’s Public health authorities have adopted a harm reduction strategy through alternative tobacco products. This approach was endorsed by Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson last year, who said, ” Anything we can do to reduce and avoid smoking is good.”
Tobacco smoke-free products are diverse, including heated tobacco and e-cigarettes in addition to chewing tobacco and nicotine pouches, which are orally used products that Sweden adopted as part of its tobacco harm reduction strategy.
Dr Delon Human, Leader of the Smoke-Free Sweden initiative and Former Health Advisor to three WHO Directors-General, seconded the Swedish government’s support for alternative tobacco products and the tax reduction on “snus.” He believes that these products represent a scientific and practical approach to reducing the risks of traditional smoking and encouraging smokers to quit entirely.
He continued, “It is necessary to provide accurate and scientific information about alternative tobacco products and to allow them to be sold at affordable prices to give smokers a real opportunity to choose and protect themselves from the risks of traditional cigarettes.”
Human emphasized that allowing the availability of safer tobacco alternatives in Sweden, such as snus, modern nicotine pouches, e-cigarettes, and heated tobacco products, at affordable prices, has had a significant impact on improving public health and achieving positive and rapid results. This has strengthened the Swedish government’s capabilities to eliminate smoking and bring it closer to declaring itself a smoke-free country.
Human considered this step of reducing the tax on “snus” to be new evidence of Sweden’s leadership in combating the harmful effects of traditional cigarettes, calling on the world’s countries to follow the same steps to protect their citizens.
It is worth noting that numerous scientific studies have confirmed that the main cause of smoking-related risks is cigarette smoke produced by the combustion of tobacco at extremely high temperatures, which can reach 800 degrees Celsius. This combustion process generates approximately 6,000 harmful chemicals, which are the primary cause of smoking-related diseases.
In contrast, tobacco alternative products do not rely on combustion but instead rely on heating, with a temperature not exceeding 350 degrees Celsius. As a result, no smoke is produced, only an aerosol. This significantly reduces the level of harmful substances found in cigarette smoke.