The question for Sweden is whether it will stand up and fight, or accept a beating from the tobacco control industrial complex.
The first rule in any bar fight is to always punch the biggest guy first. These are the rules the WHO / Bloomberg anti-nicotine coalition operates by. And that is the only possible reason for understanding their relentless attacks on the successful Swedish tobacco harm reduction model.
Sweden has become the first country to have achieved smoke-free status (under 5% of the population smoking combustible tobacco products). Rather unsurprisingly,, Sweden also has the lowest rates of smoking-related deaths from lung cancer and COPD (more than half of the European average).
Given that the EU smoking average is stubbornly stuck at around 24% despite decades of WHO tobacco control efforts, this news should be celebrated. Instead the WHO issued a scathing criticism of Sweden’s tobacco control measures. What gives?
The Puppet and the Puppet Master
In May, Politico reported the WHO spin on Sweden’s success.
“Sweden’s overall positive experience is not as a result of snus [packaged tobacco] or nicotine pouches,” Ranti Fayokun, a scientist with the WHO’s smokefree initiative, told reporters on Thursday. She warned the Swedish example was being used to “promote nicotine addiction.”
In a rather dystopian manner, Fayokun’s reaction was timed with the first WHO report on nicotine pouches which did not look at the effectiveness of pouches as a tobacco cessation tool or harm reduction strategy, nor did it compare the health risks of pouches to smoking, but rather the WHO merely focused on industry marketing tactics to argue their intent to create more nicotine addiction. Like most WHO anti-nicotine activities, this anti-snus/pouches report was funded by the Gates Foundation, which has been working in tandem with the anti-harm reduction campaigns run by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
If the WHO refuses to credit tobacco harm reduction strategies like snus for Sweden’s impressive achievement, then how do these global health experts believe the Nordic nation attained smoke-free status? The WHO would want us to think that smoking declined due to Michael Bloomberg’s preferred strategy of imposing high taxes on tobacco products (a strategy they are now advocating for all tobacco harm reduction products like e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches). But Sweden has the lowest level of tobacco taxes in Scandinavia and neighbouring countries do not enjoy similar declines in smoking rates.
The hard reality that the WHO / Bloomberg coalition is trying to deny is that Sweden became the first country to achieve smoke-free status (14 years ahead of the WHO target) due to their positive promotion of tobacco harm reduction alternatives like snus, nicotine pouches and vapes. This flies in the face of Michael Bloomberg’s “prohibition at all costs” ideology and threatens to undermine his $2 billion tobacco control campaign. So the zealot solution is to invest heavily in communications campaigns to discredit Sweden.
It is shocking to see how the WHO cannot even consider the reality of Sweden’s success and include it within a toolbox of possible tobacco control strategies. Why is this? Due to funding cuts, almost all of the implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) has been outsourced to the flotilla of NGOs funded and managed by Bloomberg Philanthropies. They call the shots via the foundation-funded MPOWER strategy that is only nominally associated with the WHO.
This is a stunning breakdown in global health policy. The forced condemnation of the one country that has successfully attained the FCTC’s ambitious tobacco control targets reflects what happens when activist dogma and foundation funding take over a UN organisation. Not only is the WHO forced to follow the billionaire piper and argue against successful harm reduction strategies (and common sense), they have to demand that the billionaire’s failed prohibition ideology is imposed on all WHO members. The European Union is presently revising its Tobacco Products Directive (TBD), and the main policy driver is to comply with the WHO / Bloomberg strategy. This is pure madness.
The best defence when you are losing on facts and evidence is a strong offence. The European Health Commissioner, brawler Olivér Várhelyi, has declared that he is absolutely certain, “100 per cent”, that products like e-cigarettes, snus and nicotine pouches are as harmful as traditional cigarettes. Of course, VarHar has never been very good with numbers and data while executing his campaign rhetoric (and I am “100 per cent certain” of that). He is just bowing to the demands of a co-opted WHO (which he praised highly in that interview).
Always punch the biggest guy first: in this case, Sweden.
But will Sweden roll with the punches or accept the punishment beating being meted out by the tobacco control industrial complex for quitting smoking the wrong way?
| How did Sweden leave the rest of the world behind? | ||
| Sweden | WHO / Bloomberg Coalition | |
| Strategy | Promote harm reduction | Promote prohibition |
| Policies | Education, engagement | Restrictions and bans |
| Communications | Rational, science-based | Fear-mongering, anti-industry |
| Tax approach | Lower taxes on vapes, snus | Higher taxes on nicotine alternatives |
| Outcome | Smoke-free status, – 60% deaths | High smoking / cancer / death rates |
The European Health Commissioner has decided the WHO / Bloomberg strategy is the best alternative to serve European Union citizens. Europe’s only hope is for Sweden to continue to call out the charlatans.
The Swedish Snus Push
It is hard to understand the impact of snus unless you speak to a Swedish smokeless tobacco user. Rarely do you find such passion for a consumer product. I visited a nicotine shop in Stockholm recently and even for a non-consumer, the excitement was palpable.
Sweden demanded a snus derogation in 1995 when joining the European Union, getting the assurance that snus would be excluded from the EU ban on oral tobacco. Sweden promised it would not allow snus exports to any other EU country and in return, the product was excluded from the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive. In the recent proposed tobacco tax regulation, Sweden managed to block a proposed exponential increase in taxes on nicotine pouches.
These were quick political fixes going back to the 1990s intended to make a problem go away, but three decades later, snus stands as a unique regulatory phenomenon: Brussels’ special child who is both brilliant and problematic. In 2012, Snus even brought down a European Commissioner, John Dalli, in what was known as Snusgate (or Dalligate) when a Swedish Match lobbyist reported an inappropriate financial solicitation from an associate of the then European health commissioner.
The European Commission has tried to ringfence snus (as a “Swedish problem”) but with the increased use of so-called “white snus” (nicotine pouches), patience is wearing thin. France recently earned the ire of the Swedish government by threatening exorbitant fines and up to five-year prison sentences for nicotine pouch and snus smugglers. Of course, Sweden condemned the ban as an attack on the “Swedish way of life”.
France has justified the ban and prison sentences for possession of snus or nicotine pouches given that nicotine has been classified as a “toxic substance” that is addictive. Two words: French wine. The absurdity here is not that it is about snus or a limited understanding of toxicity, but that the French government has actually decided to criminalise harm reduction. Somewhere in New York today, Michael Bloomberg is nodding his head in approval.
The Swedish promotion and defence of snus as a safer alternative to smoking has shown the benefits of rational regulation, responsible health strategies and scientific facts. Given the reactions against this small consumer product, we can only assume that there is a great deal of misunderstanding and misinformation about these little pouches. I salute the Swedish government for standing up to the WHO / Bloomberg coalition that refuses to relent from their anti-industry bias, prohibitionist dogma and fear-laden misinformation. All the money in the world from billionaire philanthropists, and all the influence in the world from WHO campaigns cannot persist when confronted with facts, evidence and political conviction.
It is just a shame that Michael Bloomberg could have directed his $2 billion in anti-nicotine financing to something positive like better healthcare rather than on expensive lobbyists and useless campaigns.
The more Sweden holds firm against the health zealot campaigns, the more the positive health data from this Nordic country contradicts the activist ideology, the more consumers recognise the effectiveness of tobacco harm reduction strategies, the closer we will all get to living in a smoke-free world.
