{"id":23746,"date":"2025-04-03T12:23:51","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T12:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/?p=23746"},"modified":"2025-04-03T12:23:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T12:23:57","slug":"spain-has-made-no-progress-in-fight-against-smoking-leading-psychologist-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/post\/spain-has-made-no-progress-in-fight-against-smoking-leading-psychologist-warns\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain has made \u201cno progress\u201d in fight against smoking, leading psychologist warns"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Spain has made \u201cno progress in the fight against smoking\u201d and should switch to Sweden\u2019s more effective approach, a leading psychologist has warned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karl Fagerstr\u00f6m, clinical psychologist and creator of the widely-used nicotine dependence test, said Spain\u2019s current prohibitive strategy is likely to \u201ckeep the number of smokers high.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fagerstr\u00f6m made the comments in response to Spain\u2019s plans to ban disposable vapes and all flavours except tobacco and menthol, as well as nicotine pouches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ban is part of a new \u2018Anti-Tobacco Plan,\u2019 which aims to limit products that cause a risk to young people\u2019s health and are a \u2018gateway\u2019 to smoking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talking at a conference of international tobacco harm reduction experts titled ‘Advances in the tobacco struggle: Spain vs. international experiences,\u2019 Fagerstr\u00f6m said the new laws are likely to cause more harm than good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Spain should switch to Sweden\u2019s approach\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Instead, he joined other health experts in advocating for the more regulatory approach of Sweden. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sweden\u2019s use of nicotine alternatives such as vapes, snus and pouches, has been key to reducing its smoking rate to only 4.5 per cent – below the World Health Organisation\u2019s threshold for being officially “smoke-free.”<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fagerstr\u00f6m joined cardiologist Konstantinos Farsalinos and oncological surgeon Fernando Fern\u00e1ndez Bueno in expressing concern for nicotine alternatives being treated on a par with far more harmful cigarettes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While they welcomed increased taxes and generic packaging on conventional tobacco, they said science does not support a similar approach for nicotine alternatives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A \u2018de facto prohibition\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The experts said the bans placed on vapes and pouches amount to a \u201cde facto prohibition,\u201d as severely limiting nicotine strength and flavours makes the products far less effective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“This de facto ban is a serious mistake in terms of health,” said Bueno. “..science has shown that both products are substantially less harmful, and contribute to smoking cessation.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, he said Sweden\u2019s model has not only reduced smoking, it\u2019s also had a positive impact on the country\u2019s health<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A report by global health organisation Smoke Free Sweden reveals that, despite having a nicotine consumption level similar to the European average, it records a 41 per cent lower incidence of lung cancer <\/strong>and half the tobacco-related deaths of other surrounding countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other countries seeing success<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The doctors also cited other countries including Iceland, Norway and the UK, which have incorporated nicotine alternatives into their public health strategy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the UK, health officials have been handing out free vapes as part of a successful \u2018Swap to Stop\u2019 campaign. The smoking rate there has fallen to 12 per cent, which is 13 per cent below Spain\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The doctors also expressed concern that consumers in Spain will simply switch to buying from the black market. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farsalinos said that far from protecting people, the restrictions would encourage unregulated and unsafe parallel markets,<\/strong> making it even harder to move away from tobacco.\u00a0

The experts highlighted that not all smokers manage to quit using traditional methods. Therefore, they said, offering <\/strong>safer alternatives must be a central part of any anti-smoking strategy if it is going to be effective.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spain has made \u201cno progress in the fight against smoking\u201d and should switch to Sweden\u2019s more effective approach, a leading psychologist has warned.  Karl Fagerstr\u00f6m, clinical psychologist and creator of the widely-used nicotine dependence test, said Spain\u2019s current prohibitive strategy is likely…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":990002,"featured_media":23747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[257,244],"tags":[334,186,331,333],"slider":[],"class_list":["post-23746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-harm-reduction","tag-global","tag-nicotine","tag-spain","tag-sweden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/990002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23753,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23746\/revisions\/23753"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23746"},{"taxonomy":"slider","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/slider?post=23746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}