{"id":27044,"date":"2025-10-06T11:14:40","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T11:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/?p=27044"},"modified":"2025-10-06T11:14:44","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T11:14:44","slug":"a-cruel-joke-on-europes-smokers-french-pouch-ban-to-go-ahead-in-april","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/post\/a-cruel-joke-on-europes-smokers-french-pouch-ban-to-go-ahead-in-april\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cA cruel joke on Europe\u2019s smokers\u201d: French pouch ban to go ahead in April"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With France pushing ahead with its criminalisation of nicotine pouches despite objections from seven other EU Member States, consumers and health policy advocates have slammed the measure,\u00a0 warning that it will criminalise ordinary Europeans crossing borders with safer nicotine products and push millions of ex-smokers back to cigarettes.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese measures are a cruel joke on Europe\u2019s smokers,\u201d said Dr Delon Human, leader of Smoke Free Sweden<\/a> and a former secretary general of the World Medical Association. \u201cOutlawing the very products that help people quit, while deadly cigarettes remain freely available, is public health turned on its head. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cEffectively, the EU is telling Swedes to light up a cigarette for their holiday. It\u2019s like banning seatbelts while raising taxes on airbags.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The ban means that Swedes, who have achieved Europe\u2019s lowest smoking rates thanks to pouches and snus, will be treated as lawbreakers if they take their products on holiday to France and face huge fines and prison terms<\/a>. Around 18% of women and 12% of men reported daily or occasional nicotine pouch use in 2022; Swedes make around half a million trips to France every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Swedish Embassy in Paris did not comment on the new law or whether they expected to see an increase in requests for consular assistance for Swedes caught in possession of nicotine pouches They insisted that Swedish citizens in France must follow French law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe measure carries disproportionate and punitive consequences for tourists committing a victimless offence, while at the same time abandoning 12 million French smokers who deserve access to safer alternatives\u201d said Robert Casinge, editor of pouchforum.eu<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The consequences aren\u2019t limited to Swedes. A smoker who quits in Luxembourg with pouches would also become a criminal simply by stepping over the border into France. About 126,000 French residents commute to Luxembourg every day for work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ban, due to kick in on April 1 2026, comes in the wake of leaked Brussels proposals to impose an EU-wide minimum tax on safer nicotine products, which will result in a 700% increase on pouches for Swedes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInstead of celebrating Sweden\u2019s achievement, the EU and France are punishing smokers who switch to safer alternatives,\u201d said Dr. Human. \u201cThese bans and punitive taxes will drive people back to cigarettes, the most harmful form of nicotine. Europe is on the brink of a public health disaster of its own making. Instead of copying Sweden\u2019s model, governments are turning their backs on science and common sense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Partik Str\u00f6mer, Secretary General of the Association of Swedish Snus Manufacturers,was scathing about the ban. \u201cIf France does not want to adhere to the basic principles on free movement of goods, including the right for Swedish citizens to use less harmful products than cigarettes on vacation, then maybe France should just leave the European Union?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Beckett, Clearing the Air\u2019s founder and a pouch user based in Belgium, has serious concerns. \u201cI have to drive to and through France for work and to visit family several times a year\u201d he said. \u201cWhat do they expect me to do? Buy a pack of Gitanes and a beret at the border?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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With France pushing ahead with its criminalisation of nicotine pouches despite objections from seven other EU Member States, consumers and health policy advocates have slammed the measure,\u00a0 warning that it will criminalise ordinary Europeans crossing borders with safer nicotine products and push…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":990003,"featured_media":27045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[257],"tags":[336,329,327,186,333],"slider":[],"class_list":["post-27044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-belgium","tag-european-union","tag-france","tag-nicotine","tag-sweden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27044","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\/990003"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27044"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27051,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27044\/revisions\/27051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27044"},{"taxonomy":"slider","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/slider?post=27044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}