When Sweden’s newest political force, Folklistan (The Peoples’ List) was formed by two of the best-known politicians in the country, they quickly whipped up a mission statement including a number of items to be introduced one by one. And item #7 turned out to be an initiative to make the EU give up their resistance towards smokeless tobacco like snus. The health benefits would be massive, says Jan Emanuel, one of the founders.
This newly formed initiative, they don’t call themselves a political party, started with two well-known political figures from different backgrounds. Jan Emanuel has a solid background from Socialdemokraterna (The Social Democratic Party) and Sara Skyttedal is currently one of the ministers of the EU parliament for Kristdemokraterna (The Christian Democrats) but she has now left that party. Together they have created a mission statement aimed at getting them elected into the EU next election.
In their list of ideas, item #7 is to change the old law from 1992 which banned snus, an oral tobacco common in Sweden. But while Sweden has an exception from the law, it also has the lowest numbers of smokers in the world. This directly translates to less cases of lung cancer and other smoking related illnesses. When one compares the 6 percent smokers in Sweden with the over 30 percent smokers in Germany, it is easy to see what a huge difference there is.
According to Folklistan’s press release on the matter, they say that this saves 3 400 lives annually in Sweden, even though the snus isn’t the only contributing factor. Sweden was also very early with banning smoking indoors in public environments and has been campaigning very hard for decades to make people stop smoking. For example, many property owners have introduced a smoking ban for their new flats so if you rent from them, smoking is totally prohibited.
In their mission statement, Folklistan demands that the EU law is changed to allow for a smoother transitions towards EU’s goal of a smoke-free Europe in 2040 and if the Swedish numbers are applied to the whole of the EU, Folklistan estimates that over 700,000 lives can be saved every year.
Also, Folklistan is urging the government not to go through with a proposed change of the tobacco taxation in the country which means that chewing tobacco, a very popular export product for Swedish Smokeless, in effect pulling the rug out of the production since defining it as snus means making it illegal to export to the EU.
Both products are produced in little bags but while snus is made by grinding the tobacco to a fine powder and then adding moisture, salt etc, chewing tobacco pouches contain finely cut slices of tobacco, which works in a different way. And while snus has been banned, chewing tobacco has not.
In their attempt to harmonize the tax regulations for snus and other tobacco products in Sweden, this changed definition in the Swedish law would put Swedish Smokeless and other manufacturers in a difficult position and effectively put a halt on a substantial part of the production in the Enköping factory.
Here is (in Swedish) Folklistan’s priority #7. Släpp snuset fritt i hela EU – folklistan.se
