A joint letter to the European Commission calls for a “market freeze” on new nicotine products, broad flavour bans, strict…
Nicotine pouches are tobacco free products used by many former smokers precisely because they want to move away from tobacco. Poland now proposes that these products should effectively be required to taste like the substance consumers are trying to leave behind.
A new Tamarind Intelligence survey, published on the World Nicotine Congress website, gives a timely insight into how Members of…
This year’s Almedalen Week made one thing difficult to ignore: nicotine pouches remains a serious political issue in Sweden. Almedalen…
After long negotiations on a fundamentally flawed proposal from the European Commission, it now seems that the Tobacco Excise Directive…
The European Commission presents its evaluation of the tobacco control framework as a comprehensive and evidence-based exercise. Yet a closer…
Despite extensive discussion and feedback, the proposed tax levels for nicotine pouches remain unchanged from earlier compromise texts. This is not a minor technical detail. It signals that, at least for now, the core approach is to ignore scientific evidence and relative risk.
For a Parliament that routinely proclaims its commitment to evidence-based policymaking and the highest possible level of public health protection scientific evidence should not be controversial.
In a recent interview, EU Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi stated that alternative tobacco products are “as harmful as traditional cigarettes.” Regardless of where individual products are placed within regulatory definitions, the underlying assertion remains the same—and it is wrong.
This is not the work of a Presidency acting as an honest broker. It is the behavior of a Presidency pushing a predetermined outcome and ignoring the feedback it has received.