Snus in the EU

The EU and the snus issue have been in the spotlight ever since the Swedish membership negotiations were conducted in 1994. However, the storm of public opinion helped the Swedish negotiators to push through an exemption permitting the continued use of snus in Sweden. On the other hand, Sweden was forced to refrain from exporting snus to other EU member countries. But snus continues to be a high-profile and controversial issue within the EU.

The EU adopted a directive as early as in 1992 prohibiting the sale of tobacco for "oral use not intended to be smoked or chewed," which included the Swedish snus but not, for example, chewing tobacco or nasal snus.

The factor that brought the EU's action to a head was the increasing and aggressive marketing of American moist snuff a relatively new and unknown product within the European Union.

The EU found its justification for the snus ban in a report from the WHO's cancer research institute, IARC. The report indicated a link between cancer and the use of snus. At this time, in the mid-1980s, there was very little research into Swedish snus. Consequently, the WHO/IARC report focused mainly on products from other countries, such as India, that resembled snus.

According to the 1992 directive, a special warning text Causes cancer was to be placed on all smokefree tobacco products. Sweden introduced the warning text when it became an EU member in 1995.

During the latter part of the 1990s, a number of groundbreaking Swedish research reports were published that did not show any link between snus use and cancer. This prompted the Swedish Government and Parliament and the National Board of Health and Welfare to demand that the EU rescind the requirement for a cancer warning, and this step was taken in June 2001 through a decision of the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. The new warning text on smokefree tobacco products read and still reads This tobacco product may damage your health and is habit-forming.
Subsequently Swedish Match initiated a legal process in which it argued that the EU had exceeded its authority when the ban was introduced, and that the ban was discriminatory, disproportionate and arbitrary.

In November 2002, a German administrative court referred the question as to whether the ban was consistent with EU law to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
In March 2003, a unanimous Swedish Parliament urged the Government, in regard to the case before the Court of Justice, to argue strongly against the ban on snus sales and also take other measures to ensure that the EUs ill-founded ban is abolished as soon as possible. In May 2003, the High Court in the UK also referred the issue of the legality of the snus ban to the European Court of Justice.

The Court of Justice delivered its ruling on December 14, 2004, stating its view that the snus ban was consistent with EU law and could therefore remain in place. Following the ruling, Swedish Match made the following comment: The present situation exclusively favors the major cigarette companies. The snus ban is absurd and must be replaced by a more reasonable regulation. Regardless of today's judgment by the European Court of Justice, it is Swedish Match's opinion that the days are numbered for the ban. There is no rational justification for denying cigarette smokers in the EU access to a less hazardous alternative to cigarettes.

Anti-smoking activities a public health mission

There are more than one billion cigarette smokers in the world. To date, anti-smoking strategies have had only a limited effect, and the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that if the present level of consumption continues, half a billion of the people alive today will die as a direct result of cigarette smoking. There is nothing to suggest that tobacco consumption will cease in the foreseeable future. Accordingly, it is a high-priority public-health mission to tackle the problem. The question is how to reduce the harmful effects for those consumers who continue to use tobacco (tobacco harm reduction), in parallel with continued efforts to persuade children and young people not to start smoking, to protect people from tobacco smoke in the environment and to encourage and facilitate breaking the smoking habit.

Against this background, an increasing number of researchers, including ones at the Royal College of Physicians in London, have begun advocating harm-reduction strategies. Swedish snus has played a key role in this debate and is generally considered to reduce health risks by 90-99 percent compared with smoking. This is because the consumption of smokefree tobacco, including snus, does not involve any burning and inhalation of toxic substances, which immediately eliminates the risk of contracting a large number of illnesses that are ascribed to tobacco use.
The ruling by the European Court of Justice that the snus ban does not violate European law disregards the potential of snus to contribute to improved public health. The ban denies the population access to the considerably less harmful form of tobacco use that snus represents and establishes a virtual monopoly for cigarettes, which have been documented as the most dangerous of tobacco products.

EU Committee confirms relative health benefits of Swedish snus

On February 18, 2008, the scientific committee, SCENIHR, (Standing Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks) published its final report. The Committee had been assigned by the EU Commission (Art. 11, Dir. 2001/37) to investigate whether smokefree products, including Swedish snus, have a potentially risk-reducing effect.

The SCENIHR report confirms the fact that Swedish snus has scientifically substantiated risk-reducing effects and establishes that there is no longer any scientific support for a continued ban on snus within the EU. The expert committee confirms that: (page references to the report within parentheses)

Using snus is significantly less harmful than smoking (p. 113-114)
A smoker who switches to snus will significantly reduce his/her risk of contracting tobacco-related illnesses (p. 115-117)
Access to snus has had positive effects on Swedish public health (p. 116-117)
Swedish data opposes the notion that snus is a gateway to smoking (p. 108, 116, 121).

“This means that the scientific issue concerning risk reduction within the tobacco area has been finally investigated. Swedish snus has a documented lower relative risk than the significantly more harmful cigarettes, which are currently sold openly within the EU. In addition, Swedish snus is best in its class with regard to risk reduction among known smokefree products,” says Lars Erik Rutqvist, Vice President Scientific Affairs at Swedish Match.

“The Commission should now assume its responsibility for risk management and risk reduction in tobacco and thus utilize the report’s findings on the relative risk benefits of snus. The Commission has a historic opportunity to question and change the existing sales ban within the EU and replace it with solid, scientifically based product regulation, which will allow Europe’s cigarette smokers to have access to Swedish snus. The product regulation should not only include content and limit potential risk components, but also marketing, consumer communication and the manner in which the product shall be introduced in new markets. Only then will it be possible to seriously steer tobacco consumption away from cigarette smoking to a significantly less hazardous alternative,” says Lars Erik Rutqvist.

EU and the future

Many analysts believe that the dramatically reduced health risks associated with snus compared with smoking warrant a change in the EU's attitudes to Swedish snus. However, strong forces also oppose every change in the EU's current tobacco directive, on ideological grounds, regardless of the insignificance of the health effects of snus.

Meanwhile, Swedish Match will continue the purposeful research it has been conducting for nearly 20 years, which shows that the content of nitrosamines and other potentially harmful components in smokefree tobacco can be reduced. Swedish Match's development of Swedish snus under its own GOTHIATEK® quality designation, with strict limits for undesired components, shows that it is possible to do the same thing for tobacco products as has been done for food products.