Al-Marsad newspaper – AFP: Thanks to a “bag” that is very popular among its residents, but also very controversial, Sweden has become the first European country preparing to become smoke-free.
El Snus
The pouch is called snus and contains tobacco, or wet nicotine, and is placed under the upper lip.
The government says these bags, used by one in 7 Swedes, have helped reduce the number of smokers in the country from 15% in 2005 to 5.2% last year, a record high in Europe.
Non-Smoking
A country is classified as smoke-free when less than 5% of its population smokes daily.
Wet tobacco pouches have been banned in the European Union since 1992. But Sweden negotiated an exemption when it joined the Union 3 years later.
At Match’s Swedish factory in Gothenburg (west), thousands of doses of wet tobacco make their way through a complex network of machines that produce bags.
In 2021, the company sold 277 million boxes of wet tobacco pouches in Sweden and Norway.
It has been used for 200 years
“We have been using it for 200 years in Sweden. It is part of Swedish culture, similar to wine culture in many other European countries,” Swedish Match spokesman Patrick Hildingsen told AFP.
Manufacturing process
Hildingsen described the manufacturing process by saying, “The tobacco is imported from India or the United States. It goes through silos and is then packaged in pouches like tea bags and then placed in boxes.”
Species
There are two types: traditional brown snus, which contains tobacco, and manufactured white snus, which contains nicotine and is often flavored.
The effect of nicotine is stronger
Traditional wet tobacco pouches are commonly sold in Sweden, Norway, and the United States.
The white type, whose production began about 15 years ago, in the absence of a regulatory text in the European Union because it does not contain tobacco. This year it was banned in Belgium and the Netherlands.
But it is very popular among young people in Sweden, where in four years its use has quadrupled among women aged 16 to 29.
15% of people in Sweden say they use some form of moist tobacco daily, a number that has increased slightly in recent years.