Nicotineproducten zonder tabak

Reactie

Vraag1

Oral nicotine pouches should be regulated, not banned
• Oral nicotine pouches do not contain tobacco. They are a less risky way for smokers to consume nicotine compared to traditional cigarettes.
• Banning oral nicotine pouches while leaving the riskiest nicotine product on the market (cigarettes) is counter intuitive. Rather than being penalised, smokers should be supported to help them switch.
• It is widely recognised that most of the harm associated with conventional cigarettes is caused by the toxicants in the smoke produced by the burning of tobacco, which is inhaled into the lungs, rather than nicotine.

Prohibition doesn’t work
• Explicitly banning oral pouches will not stop them being consumed. Indeed, the current strict product regulations in place are not stopping Dutch consumers from buying nicotine pouches – it is simply forcing consumers to buy pouches from other EU member states, or worse from the illegal market, where ingredients, quality and safety are unregulated.
• Banning nicotine pouches will mean that smokers who are looking to give up cigarettes will just keep smoking.

Look at Sweden – oral nicotine products have helped cut smoking and improve public health
• Long-term epidemiological evidence strongly suggests that the use of snus has contributed to a significant decrease in smoking and thus smoking-related disease and death in Sweden, compared to other countries in the EU (where snus is banned).
• In 2020, Sweden had by far the lowest smoking rate (7%) of any EU country (the EU average is 23%) . WHO data confirms that Sweden has the lowest mortality rate in Europe across all cancers among men, including the lowest lung cancer incidence in the EU .

There is no evidence that oral nicotine pouches are a gateway into smoking
• According to a 2008 finding by the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly-Identified Health Risks, “The Swedish data do not support the hypothesis that smokeless tobacco (i.e. Swedish snus) is a gateway to future smoking.”

Other EU member states are regulating, not banning, oral nicotine pouches
• In the last 18 months, Denmark, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Sweden have all introduced bespoke regulation for oral nicotine pouches. The measures in Netherlands go beyond what is necessary to protect public health.