VOA: Sweden close to becoming the first country in Europe “without smoking”

Sweden, which has the lowest rate of smoking in the European Union, is close to the goal of classifying “without smoking”.

According to the World Health Organization, to obtain this status, smoking rates in one country must be less than 5 percent. Sweden is very close to achieving this level.

In the public areas of Sweden, a country of 10.5 million people, it is not common to see people smoking.

Smoking is forbidden at bus stations, train platforms, outside hospitals, and other public buildings.

As with most of Europe, smoking is not allowed within restaurants, but since 2019, the ban on smoking in Sweden applies to the public outside environments in the wild.

According to the statistics agency Eurostat, only 6.4 percent of Swedes over 15 were daily smokers in 2019, the lowest level in the European Union. In the 27-member bloc, an average of 18.5 percent of residents were daily smokers in 2019.

No, I don't smoke. I don't know why. I've never started”, says Stockholm resident Andreas Modig.

We like a healthy way of life, I think that's why. I don't like the smell, I want to take care of my body, so no, it's never been an interest to me, says Carina Astorsson, another Stockholm resident.

Many experts say this is the result of decades of campaigns and anti-smoking laws.

You can't smoke in the streets, it's forbidden in so many areas. Sometimes I feel a little sorry for smokers because it's forbidden almost anywhere, says Cecilia, resident of Stockholm.

But experts stress the spread of “minus”, a smokeless tobacco product that is banned in other EU countries, but sold in Sweden as an alternative to cigarettes.

Packed in small bags of wet tobacco, people use it under their upper lips.

Swedish people so much like this tobacco product, similar to some of the products sold in the United States, that they sought an exception from the EU's smoking ban when they joined the EU in 1995.

For “Swedish Match”, a company specialising in the production and sale of tobacco products, “us” is part of Swedish identity.

“It's part of Swedish culture, it's like the Swedish equivalent of Parma Italian ham or any other cultural custom”, says Patrick Hildingsson, spokesman for the company “Swedish Match”, the best producer of “us” in Sweden, which was purchased by the tobacco giant “Phile Morris” last year.

Over the past ten years, the use of wet tobacco and other smokeless forms of nicotine increased from 11.2 to 13.7 percent.

Marina Sohlberg, a professor at Stockholm University, says that antismoking policies in Sweden have had the effect of stigmatizing smoking and smokers, removing them from public spaces in the backyards and in areas designated for smoking.

Our rules and policies are sending signals to smokers that this is not accepted by society”, she says.

Mrs. Sohlberg admits that wet tobacco is also dangerous to health. But she says there should be a greater focus on reducing health damage in the fight against smoking.

To remove people from smoking, which is harmful to health, we must offer them an alternative that is less harmful”, she says.

However, the World Health Organization says that switching from one harmful product to another is not a solution.

“Directing the so-called “access to damage reduction” is another way that the tobacco industry is trying to deceive people about the dangerous nature of these products”, O said You're through an email for the Associated Press news agency. / VOA/