Swedish MPs slammed for plan equating nicotine pouches with cigarettes
A student organisation close to Sweden’s centre-right Moderate Party has sharply criticised two of the party’s MPs for seeking to tax tobacco-free nicotine pouches in the same way tobacco.
Martin Bergman and Per Mittag-Leffler from the Free Moderate Student Union say the proposal risks being “a detriment to public health as well as for freedom”.
“Nicotine pouches, like snus, are much less harmful than smoking tobacco, which makes it incomprehensible why members of parliament want to raise the tax on these new products,” the two write in the Expressen newspaper.
The moderate members of parliament Sofia Westergren and Marie-Louise Hänel Sandström last autumn wrote a motion in which they argued that all nicotine products that are not a drug approved for medical use should be classified as tobacco.
A weapon for improving public health
But Bergman and Mittag-Leffler argue this would mean needlessly abandoning a useful weapon for improving public health.
“All research and all investigations into the health effects of snus are welcome, but today, with the facts we have, comparing the health risks from snus to those from smoking is dishonest and contrary to scientific evidence,” they write.
“In the EU, there are 100 million smokers who do not have the same access to less harmful alternatives. This is an excellent opportunity for politicians to work towards less harmful products on the European market while promoting Swedish exports.”
Nicotine pouches lack regulation
At present, the EU has no common guidelines for how member states should regulate tobacco-free nicotine pouches, and the product is not covered by the EU Tobacco Products Directive (TPD).
Sweden became the first country in the EU to begin the process of classifying nicotine pouches.
In 2019, the National Food Administration proposed that tobacco-free nicotine products intended for use in the same way as snus should not be classified as food.
Last year, Lena Hallengren, Sweden’s Minister for Health and Social Affairs, announced the government would appoint a special inquiry to come up with a proposal for what the regulation of nicotine pouches should look like.
The inquiry will issue its report no later than March 31, 2021.
