{"id":5335,"date":"2021-06-02T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/snusforumet.se\/?p=5335"},"modified":"2021-09-16T12:10:46","modified_gmt":"2021-09-16T10:10:46","slug":"snus-and-the-art-of-suppression-part-2-the-eu-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/snusforumet.se\/en\/snus-and-the-art-of-suppression-part-2-the-eu-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"Snus and the Art of Suppression: Part 2 – The EU ban"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Why is snus banned in the European Union? How did it happen? Snusforumet, in partnership with author and commentator Christopher Snowdon, brings you the inside story behind one of the EU’s more confounding policies. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For the next several weeks, Snusforumet is publishing excerpts from the story behind the EU snus ban<\/em> as written in <\/em>The Art of Suppression: Pleasure, Panic and Prohibition since 1800, a 2011 book written by Christopher Snowdon.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Snusforumet subscribers get instant access to the whole story. Click here to subscribe to Snusforumet<\/a> and get the entire chapter on snus from <\/em>The Art of Suppression emailed straight to your inbox<\/em>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Part 2 – The EU ban<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Oral Snuff (Safety) Regulations had a profound effect on the UK\u2019s one and only manufacturer of oral snuff\u2014US Tobacco Inc.\u2014which found itself criminalised and sent home by the same government that had subsidised and courted it just four years earlier. Having appealed against the new law, the company won a judicial review in December 1990 on the basis that the government had failed to disclose the scientific evidence on which the prohibition hinged. This, however, gave oral snuff only a brief stay of execution before the European Commission took the matter into its own hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Skoal Bandits<\/em> banned in Ireland and with the UK making every effort to follow suit, the European Economic Community (EEC) decided that such unilateral action by member states posed a threat to its internal market. Only by banning oral snuff across the board could the desired level of harmonisation be achieved. On 15 May 1992, Council Directive 92\/41\/EEC announced that \u201cthe only appropriate
measure is a total ban\u201d on \u201cnew tobacco products for oral use.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once again, oral cancer was cited as the threat to public health that justified banning these niche products. According to the Directive, Skoal Bandits<\/em> and the like had \u201cparticularly large quantities of carcinogenic substances\u201d which \u201ccause cancer of the mouth in particular.\u201d In addition to banning \u201cnew\u201d smokeless products, the Directive instructed the tobacco industry to add the unambiguous warning \u2018Causes Cancer \u2019to its range of \u201ctraditional\u201d (and therefore still legal) smokeless products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1992 ban was transparently aimed at US Tobacco Inc. and their Skoal Bandits<\/em>. The European Commission made no attempt to explain why traditional oral tobacco products were exempt from the ban, let alone why the more deadly, and vastly more popular, smoked products should go untouched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Widely perceived as purveyors of candy-flavoured carcinogens, few mourned the departure of US Tobacco Inc. from European shores. Few even noticed. Oral snuff was only consumed in any quantity in the Nordic countries and, of these, only Denmark was a member of the EEC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Snus\u2014which rhymes with \u2018juice \u2019and simply means \u2018snuff \u2019in Swedish\u2014had been used for two hundred years in Sweden and had inspired the creation of Skoal Bandits<\/em> in the first place; both products consisted of…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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