EU nicotine policy is under fire after claims that smoke-free nicotine products are as harmful as cigarettes. In GFN News, Joanna Junak interviews Bengt Wiberg of Stingfree AB on why experts dispute these statements, what science says about nicotine pouches, snus, and vaping, and how the debate could impact tobacco harm reduction and future EU regulation.
Transcription:
00:05 - 01:14
[Joanna Junak]
Hello and welcome. I'm Joanna Junak and this is GFN News on GFN.TV. At the start of this year, nicotine policy in the European Union has come under growing attention. Recent comments by an EU health commissioner suggesting that smoke-free nicotine products are as harmful as cigarettes have sparked debate among experts and policymakers. In today's program, Bengt Wiberg, founder of StingFree AB, shares his perspective on the controversy and its potential impact on harm reduction and future EU nicotine policy. Hello, Bengt. Could you explain to us why the EU Commissioner's statement on smoke-free nicotine products caused so much controversy?
01:14 - 04:30
[Bengt Wiberg]
Because when the EU Commissioner is comparing safer nicotine alternatives like nicotine pouches, snus and vapes, With smoking, it is very dangerous because it sends a signal that smoking, that according to the WHO, kills seven to eight million people prematurely each year. Whereas there has not been a single death in history attributed to nicotine pouches or snooze or vaping for that matter. So it's a very dangerous statement. And for those viewers who perhaps have not heard the statements, the statements from Oliver Varhely from Hungary, EU Commissioner of Health, These statements were made in the summer of 2025. He said, for the first time ever, we acknowledge that new tobacco and nicotine products pose health risks comparable to traditional ones and following has created completely new health risks that are comparable to or even greater than smoking itself. So bear in mind, viewers, smoking, according to the World Health Organization, kills seven to eight million people each year, dying prematurely due to mainly lung cancer and other cancer form and cardiovascular diseases. So let's investigate the number seven to eight million premature deaths. That is more deaths than all armed conflicts and war after, since 1946 until today. So this is a very extremely false and dangerous statement. And I am of the opinion that EU officials should be able to be held accountable somehow. There has been a public outcry from, a whole long list of experts and innovators like me. I'm the innovator of the sting-free pouch technology. And I did mention on X, I was so amazed about these statements. I said, this could be more dangerous than the plague. Of course, an exaggeration. But in the long term, this could discourage many of the world's one billion daily smokers to switch to safer alternatives if they cannot be without nicotine at all.
04:32 - 04:42
[Joanna Junak]
It seems, based on what you've just said, that some theatre experts may disagree with the EU Commissioner's statement. Could you explain why?
04:44 - 09:52
[Bengt Wiberg]
Because scientific studies shows if we take the oldest tobacco harm reduction product on the world, which is Swedish tobacco snus. This has been proven in a study by the Karolinska Institute. That is the organization that appoints the Nobel Prize in Medicine each year, totally independent. So what they looked at was 423,000 Swedish males covered for a 30-year period. period and they concluded that there is no increased risk whatsoever for oral cancer compared to never-snooze users. If we look at, for example, the independent German BFR Institute, a few years ago, they investigated some 60 different types of nicotine pouches. And the conclusion was that, you know, there were no hardly any measurable traces of any dangerous, how do you say, ingredients in nicotine pouches. If you look at a study by Rachel Merck et al. in 2022, nicotine pouches are considered the same ultra low risk as nicotine replacement products, which is like nicotine gum, nicotine patches. Compared to smoking, which in this comparison, smoking is 100% risk and nicotine pouch is 0.1% risk. And looking at snus, if I remember correctly, snus with tobacco is about 5% the risk of smoking. And compared to vaping, I think vaping was like 3% risk of smoking. And simply, I, I'm also the founder of the EU for snooze movement, eight years ago, and my heart burns for more people doing the same journey. As I have, I quit smoking in 1991. For good. Thanks to snooze. And so many people are these past years finding a way out of smoking thanks to safer alternatives and looking at Sweden. The daily smoking rate in Sweden is now down to 5.3%. And among the young people, because EU likes to point out often that, oh, More young people will start smoking because they start using nicotine pouches or vaping. That is not the fact. Because the past 10 years, according to Swedish government national statistics, the smoking prevalence of... 16 to 29 year olds has decreased with 72% and has been exchanged. It's almost a perfect correlation with the snus and nicotine pouch use. Sweden used to be one of the few countries in the world where women had a higher smoking prevalence than men. But once the snus without tobacco, without staining your teeth, it's a white product, contains no tobacco leaf whatsoever. Since that came on the market a few years ago, Swedish women are now having almost the same low smoking prevalence as Swedish men. And by not smoking, Sweden has the ultra lowest cases of rates of lung cancer, oral cancer, cardiovascular diseases in all of Europe. This should be a lesson to the EU, not trying to scare people like Commissioner Oliver Varrelly is doing. And it shouldn't get away with it, in my opinion.