The EU Tobacco Excise Directive (TED) proposed amendment is once again stirring the debate over whether policymakers are putting ideology before evidence, especially when it comes to safer nicotine products. A recent compromise text, dated 17 April 2026, a leaked draft document reviewed by Snusforumet, calls for a minimum tax rate of €95 per kilogram on nicotine pouches, phased in by 2032. For Swedish consumers, especially, this would have serious implications since the country’s smoking cessation success story was based on the use of such products.
The Swedish Model: A successful story ignored and undermined
…the EU tax framework threatens to wipe out the price incentive that has persuaded millions of smokers to switch to less harmful products, by artificially inflating their relative cost.
For a long time, Sweden has been unique in its approach to controlling tobacco use. It has created a transparent economic incentive for smokers to avoid combustible cigarettes by taxing products according to their relative risk. The results speak for themselves. In Sweden, daily smoking is at an impressive 3.7 percent—the lowest in the EU, while most of the rest of the bloc is closer to 24 percent. The secret has not been prohibition, but providing access to smoke-free products like snus and nicotine pouches.However the EU tax framework there would do exactly the opposite. It threatens to wipe out the price incentive that has persuaded millions of smokers to switch to less harmful products, by artificially inflating their relative cost. This is exactly the kind of misaligned policy that a recent commentary in Nature Health by former World Health Organization officials highlighted. Their conclusion was unambiguous: tobacco control strategies that do not include harm reduction will never lead to the reductions in smoking-related disease necessary for truly meaningful declines in morbidity and mortality.
Ignoring risk instead of taxing it
A core question driving the controversy is whether all nicotine products should be treated alike. Decades of evidence suggest not. It is the combustion itself that drives smoking-related disease, not nicotine. This distinction forms the basis for the argument for risk-proportionate regulation — a theme increasingly promoted by experts in the field, such as Clive Bates, who highlights that policy should be assessed by real-world outcomes, not hypothetical fears.
Sweden has embraced this principle. High taxes on cigarettes and lower taxation of alternatives without smoke reinforce healthier choices. But the EU’s new directive aims to flatten these differences. This not only leads to incoherent policy but also to self-defeating policy.
We’ve already seen this system play out in other countries. In Australia, aggressive taxation coupled with increasing restrictions on vaping have unleashed one of the largest black markets for nicotine, not just in the developed world but potentially anywhere. More than half of the tobacco consumed, and almost all vaping products, are now supplied illegally, causing billions in funds to be diverted to organized crime.
Another risk now faces Sweden. If safer products become unaffordable, consumers may be forced back to cigarettes or into unregulated markets—neither of which is good for public health or the public purse.
The pragmatists vs the idealists
The debate surrounding the TED revision itself illustrates a wider trend in global tobacco control. Experts are describing a clear split along ideological versus pragmatic lines.
The first focuses on getting rid of nicotine, thereby generally vilifying all products the same. The second is harm reduction, which recognizes that while nicotine use is likely to continue, how it does so makes all the difference between health and life or death.
Sweden aside, this “rise of the pragmatists,” as Bates aptly puts it, is corroborated by a growing number of international examples. Cigarette sales in Japan have fallen sharply after the launch of heated tobacco devices. Following expanded access to regulated vaping, the pace of smoking decline in New Zealand has accelerated, with particularly strong relative gains among disadvantaged populations. These cases crystallize an obvious fact: when safer products are available, acceptable, and affordable, smokers switch.
Lives lost due to bad policy decisions
Market pressures, shattered lives, and reputations get overlooked in regulatory debates. Policymakers concentrate on what they see — tax revenues, product lines, and compliance measures. However, the more powerful outcomes are harder to quantify.
This is reflected in a lower burden of disease, families that have not borne the brunt of smoking-related illness, and in the continued normalization of smoke-free living.
Evidence of these hidden advantages can be found in Sweden’s experience. However, if the EU chooses to forgo risk-pricing in favor of uniform taxation, it will jeopardize the very conditions that facilitated this success. The irony is that the EU is trying to bring its tobacco framework into the modern era while the evidence for harm reduction has never been stronger. Harm reduction is built into the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control itself. But in practice, this principle is often ignored.
In their recent article, the former WHO leaders also stated that lives will be lost if harm reduction is not incorporated into the global strategy. With over seven million deaths a year, smoking is still the biggest killer, and current approaches are insufficient to bring about faster declines—particularly among older long-term smokers. Policies that limit access to safer products are harder than ever to justify against this backdrop.
The stakes for Sweden, Europe, and beyond
While the challenge remains all the more pressing for Sweden, it would of course have consequences far wider than the nation. The outcome of the revision to TED will indicate whether the EU is ready to accept a risk-based approach to nicotine or stick to the flawed idea that all products are of equal harm. The implications would go beyond public health if the former triumphs. Taxing products that are less harmful to health, however, will likely cause the growth of black markets in unsafe alternatives and harm functioning markets – all while damaging the credibility of efforts to promote tobacco control.
For the rest of Europe, it is a matter of choosing between two competing visions for public health: one based on evidence and results, the other on uniformity and control.
The question now is not if harm reduction works. Meanwhile, the data from Sweden, Japan, and New Zealand already answered that. The real question is whether to bring it to the world stage, and policymakers will turn it into praxis.
