Snus industry lobbying in Sweden has delayed tobacco control legislation for years

Abstract

From being in the forefront of tobacco control until around 2006 Sweden is now in 2019 more in the bottom than in the lead. In Scandinavia, only Denmark is behind Sweden. Tobacco control measures that have been discussed to control the tobacco industry such as a display van and standardized pictorial warnings have been stopped and moved from decisions in the Parliament. The latter despite support from the majority of the public. As a result, Sweden has dropped from the fifth place on the European Tobacco Control Scale in 2006 to the eleventh place in 2016. The main explanation is the Swedish snus industry´s influence on decision makers in the Government but also Parliament. As a result of the lobbying there is now a majority among the political parties in the parliament in support of a harm regulation agenda for tobacco based on the harm they cause. This presentation will focus on the snus industry’s main strategies in Sweden and how the snus industry has promoted snus and snus use during the last 20 years. In particular during the last years when the harm regulation agenda has been promoted among decision makers in Sweden at the cost of several failures to further regulate the marketing of tobacco products incl. the tobacco industry. The situation is Sweden in Sweden can then be used as a warning example when other nicotine- and tobacco products are entering the markets with the risk of increased lobbying and support also for a harm regulation concept for such products impacting on the regulation of all tobacco products incl the traditional cigarettes.