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Health experts in Sweden have released a report saying that e-cigarettes have helped reduce smoking rates to less than five percent

Health experts in Sweden have released a report saying that e-cigarettes have helped reduce smoking rates to less than five percent

2023-03-31

Sweden is on track to become the first "smoke free" country in Europe and the world, with the promotion of e-cigarettes and other harm reducing products, according to a report by public health experts titled "The Swedish Experience: A Road map to a smoke-free Society."


In 2021, the EU announced the goal of "a smoke-free Europe by 2040", which is to reduce the smoking rate (number of cigarette users/total number of people *100%) to below 5% by 2040. Sweden's achievement of the mission 17 years ahead of schedule was described as a "remarkable feat of milestone". In 1963, when national smoking rates were first measured, there were 1.9 million smokers in Sweden and 49 percent of men used cigarettes, according to the report. Today, the total number of smokers has fallen by 80 percent.


Mitigation strategies are key to Sweden's amazing achievement. "We know that cigarettes kill eight million people a year. If the rest of the world were to encourage smokers to switch to harm reduction products such as e-cigarettes, 3.5 million lives could be saved over the next 10 years in the EU alone." The authors emphasize in the report.


Since 1973, the Swedish Public Health Service has made a conscious effort to control tobacco use through mitigation products. Every time a new product appears, the regulatory authorities will investigate the relevant scientific evidence, and if it proves that the product reduces the harm, it will be open to management and even popularization of science to the people.


E-cigarettes became popular in Sweden in 2015. In the same year, an authoritative international study confirmed that e-cigarettes are 95% less harmful than cigarettes. Swedish authorities immediately encouraged smokers to switch to e-cigarettes. The number of e-cigarette users in Sweden rose from 7 per cent in 2015 to 12 per cent in 2020, the data showed, while smoking rates in Sweden fell from 11.4 per cent in 2012 to 5.6 per cent in 2022.


"A pragmatic, enlightened approach to management has greatly improved the public health environment in Sweden." The World Health Organization confirmed that Sweden has 41 percent lower cancer rates than any other European Union member state, and the lowest rates of lung cancer and male smoking deaths in Europe. What's more, Sweden has produced a "smoke-free generation" : the latest figures show that only 3% of Swedish 16- to 29-year-olds smoke, well below the 5% required by the European Union.


"The Swedish experience is a gift to the global public health community. If countries followed Sweden's example of tobacco control, tens of millions of lives would be saved." The report also makes a number of recommendations on "how to replicate the Swedish model," including publicly acknowledging the harm reduction of e-cigarettes, educating the public, especially smokers, on the benefits of harm reduction, and providing appropriate policy support to make it easy for smokers to buy e-cigarettes.


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