80,000 Responses Later, Will the EU Listen to the Evidence on Tobacco Harm Reduction?

The European Union is entering a potentially decisive period for tobacco harm reduction. With its latest tobacco consultation now closed, Brussels must decide whether future regulation will recognise the very different risks posed by cigarettes, vapes, heated tobacco products and nicotine pouches—or increasingly treat them as variations of the same problem.

The European Commission launched its (second) public consultation on May 22 and closed it on August 14. Together with an earlier call for evidence, which attracted more than 80,000 responses, the exercise will inform revisions of the Tobacco Products Directive and Tobacco Advertising Directive expected before the end of 2026. The Commission says existing rules have helped reduce smoking and tobacco-related mortality, but argues that rapid growth in newer nicotine products, particularly among young people, requires the framework to be modernised.

Yet even before the responses have been fully analysed, controversy has shifted from what Brussels might regulate to how it has sought public input. University of Catania professor Riccardo Polosa told Eunews that the questionnaire’s design raised concerns about both transparency and the quality of the process. He described it as unnecessarily complicated and argued that some questions appeared to channel respondents towards predetermined categories and policy choices.

His concern is particularly relevant to tobacco harm reduction because combining fundamentally different nicotine products within broad regulatory questions can obscure differences in relative risk. Polosa argues that reducing smoking-related disease and mortality should remain the central objective and that future EU legislation should clearly distinguish combustible cigarettes from non-combustible alternatives.

This is more than a technical debate over survey design. The consultation will feed into legislation that could affect hundreds of millions of European consumers, while the existing Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) already regulates cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes, among other categories. The question is whether the next framework will become more risk-proportionate—or move towards increasingly similar treatment of all nicotine products.

Brussels may have moderately legitimate reasons to address youth uptake. The Commission has specifically identified newer tobacco and nicotine products and their popularity among younger consumers as an emerging public-health challenge. Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi, who is known to be very anti-tobacco harm reduction strategies, has specifically framed the review around keeping regulation abreast of a changing market and protecting young people from new forms of dependence.

However, preventing youth nicotine use and encouraging adults to stop smoking do not have to be competing objectives. Age restrictions, responsible retailing, product standards and appropriately designed marketing rules can protect minors without removing potentially valuable alternatives from adults who smoke. The danger comes when youth protection becomes justification for eliminating distinctions between combustible and smoke-free products.

Risk perceptions are already moving in the wrong direction. ASH data for Great Britain found that in 2025, 56% of adults who had heard of vaping believed it was equally or more harmful than cigarettes, while only 28% correctly identified vaping as less harmful. As 53% believed vaping was equally or outright more harmful. For smokers deciding whether to switch, such misconceptions are hardly inconsequential.

Norwegian tobacco researcher Karl E. Lund believes policymakers should look more closely at Scandinavia. Rather than focusing exclusively on eliminating nicotine consumption, Lund argues that regulation should help people who cannot or do not wish to stop using nicotine move away from smoking. Sweden is particularly important because cigarettes have increasingly been displaced by non-combustible alternatives such as snus and nicotine pouches.

Like many of his peers, Lund describes the Scandinavian approach as one of risk-proportionate regulation: products are not automatically treated identically simply because they contain nicotine. He argues that creating barriers to lower-risk alternatives while cigarettes remain readily available is difficult to reconcile with reducing smoking-related harm.

That argument becomes increasingly relevant when considering the estimated 90–100 million Europeans who still smoke despite decades of taxation, advertising restrictions, health warnings and smoke-free policies. Traditional tobacco control has achieved substantial progress. The issue is whether the remaining smoking population will respond to ever-tighter versions of the same policies—or whether substitution should become a larger part of Europe’s strategy.

Retailers have raised another concern: poorly calibrated regulation may shift sales rather than eliminate demand. The European Confederation of Tobacco Retailers has warned that disproportionate restrictions could disadvantage compliant businesses while benefiting illicit sellers. Lund has raised similar concerns, arguing that regulators need to consider the real-world consequences of making legal alternatives less attractive or accessible.

Perhaps the most overlooked issue in the consultation is how Europe communicates relative risk. The growing belief that vaping is as dangerous as smoking demonstrates what can happen when public-health messages emphasise uncertainty without adequately explaining the magnitude of risk. Even youth data challenge the assumption that exaggerated perceptions necessarily discourage experimentation: in 2024, 58% of British 11–17-year-olds who knew about vaping believed it was as harmful or more harmful than smoking, yet ASH noted that such beliefs did not appear to prevent young people from trying vapes.

Accurate communication therefore matters for both credibility and informed decision-making.

Non-combustible nicotine products should not be promoted to non-users. But neither should their risks be communicated in ways that leave smokers believing there is little health advantage in abandoning cigarettes.

Stricter tobacco-control groups are pushing Brussels in the opposite direction, calling for tougher regulation of newer products, stronger restrictions on online promotion and greater freedom for Member States to impose additional measures. Agricultural representatives, meanwhile, have complained that the consultation did not adequately capture their sector’s concerns.

The Commission must now reconcile these competing perspectives and translate thousands of submissions into legislation. Its objective of (allegedly) creating a tobacco-free generation by 2040 provides an important clue to what should ultimately matter: reducing tobacco smoking and the disease it causes. The Commission itself describes the target as a tobacco-free generation, while confirming that the review will address the rapidly changing nicotine market.

Europe therefore faces a choice that extends well beyond flavours, advertising or packaging. It can increasingly regulate nicotine by its presence, or regulate products by their risks. For tobacco harm reduction advocates, the test of the consultation’s credibility will now be straightforward: whether Brussels genuinely listens to the evidence it asked Europeans to provide.

https://www.vapingpost.com/2026/07/28/from-poland-to-lithuania-are-europes-nicotine-policies-reasonable-or-going-too-far/