A new documentary lifts the lid on how Sweden became the first country in the world to be declared officially “smoke-free.”
Sweden’s smoking rate of just 4.5 per cent (and falling) of its population is just a fraction of the European average of more than 24 per cent. The programme ‘How Sweden Quit Smoking’, directed by Tomasz Agencki, looks at how the country achieved the impressive feat.
It explains that the secret to Sweden’s anti-smoking success is its progressive approach to safer nicotine alternatives, particularly snus.
The Nordic country makes nicotine products such as snus and vapes widely available to adult smokers wanting to quit. This is the opposite approach to the rest of the world, which is increasingly banning these alternatives while struggling to reduce smoking rates.
The World Health Organisation defines “smoke-free” as a smoking rate of under five per cent
Lowest rates of cancer and cardiovascular disease
“We have the lowest smoking prevalence in the European Union,” the programme – which has screenings in major cities including London, Paris, Brasilia, Madrid, and Taipei – says. “We also have the lowest lung cancer. We have two smoke-free generations by now. Lowest oral cancer. Below five per cent of daily smokers.
“Lowest number in Europe. The lowest cardiovascular diseases. We are the gold standard – We are the best in the world. So what is the problem with the rest of the world? We have something they don’t have. ‘We have snus, you don’t’.”
The documentary interviews leading industry experts who explain that it is tobacco in cigarettes causing death and serious illnesses such as cancer, and not nicotine.
‘Swedes don’t smoke, they don’t get sick’
“How can we consume just the same amount of tobacco and nicotine and have the lowest cancer rates and mortality rates?,” says snus innovator Bengt Wiberg. “People claim that everything containing nicotine is dangerous. They haven’t done their homework. Swedish people use these products, and they don’t smoke, they don’t get sick. If Sweden is doing it, other countries can do it too.”
More than 50 years ago, half of the Swedish male population smoked, according to the programme. This peaked at around 45-50 per cent of men smoking at the end of the 1960s, while in some countries it was up to 75 per cent. Then two things happened.
“The scientific evidence that cigarettes are closely linked to lung cancer,” Wiberg says. “So first the doctor quit smoking and then the doctor’s patient quit smoking.
“And then the portions, like the small bags came.. Basically the Swedish male population switched from smoking to snus. The little tea bag is now under one fifth of the Swedish population’s lips instead of a cigarette. It has done a great job”.
Nicotine has been made ‘the bad guy’
The programme points out that even the World Health Organisation and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S – that are leading the drive to ban nicotine alternatives – say on their websites that nicotine does not in itself cause cancer.
Dr. Anders Milton, former Chair of the World Medical Association, says: “The other products, the e-cigarettes or the heat-not-burn, or snus, or tobacco pouches, are much less harmful because you don’t get all the tar that you would get from cigarettes.”
The programme says that “in a way the nicotine is the bad guy because it’s the one making you inhale the smoke. But then there is nowadays ways to get the nicotine without the smoke [sic]. You can do the snus and you can do the vaping.”
It calculates that if the rest of the European Union were to use snus and nicotine in the same way as Sweden, there would be 255,000 per year fewer deaths.
“I mean, it’s a lot of people,” says Swedish Association of Snus Manufacturers Secretary General Patrik Strömer. “It’s 10 million people during those three decades. That’s quite a lot, and it’s hard to admit that you have been responsible for that.”
‘It really ought not to be an issue at all’
A recent survey among European Union members of parliament shows that 25 to 30 per cent believe vapes and nicotine pouches to be just as dangerous as cigarettes, according to the programme.
“This means they are not aware or they might believe nicotine is causing cancer and death,” it says.
Policy expert Atakan Befrits says: “Further and further parts of the Swedish society have more or less completely stopped smoking in favour of using another product that perhaps is not a health product, but it doesn’t kill you, it doesn’t cause cancer. It is very marginal from a public health perspective and really ought not to be an issue at all, especially considering the benefits that can be realised.”
“The Swedish example shows that it works,” adds Milton. “There is a greater understanding of the fact that there are certain forms of nicotine that doesn’t cause you cancer, that doesn’t kill you [sic]. We have to accept the fact that people will use that.
“We will see a change. It hasn’t really arrived yet, but we will see a change.
