Berlin summit confronted deadly failures in Germany’s smoking policy

Berlin – International health experts met in Berlin on Monday 24th November to confront one of Germany’s most urgent public-health challenges: a stalled smoking rate that continues to claim 130,000 lives every year.

Many of those lives, the experts warned, are being needlessly lost because of Germany’s misguided rules on tobacco-free oral nicotine pouches.

Dr. Delon Human, the host of the event, said: “Germany is enduring a preventable health crisis and real-world evidence shows they’re shunning a proven way out.”

The Berlin summit took place against the backdrop of WHO’s COP11 tobacco conference in Geneva, where member states were unable to agree on regulatory approaches to nicotine alternatives such as pouches. After extensive debate between harm reduction advocates and abstinence-only proponents, the issue was deferred to 2027 – leaving individual nations to chart their own course.

The event, on Monday, 24 November, at the Bundespressekonferenz, marked the German launch of Smoke Free Sweden’s ground-breaking report, Power in a Pouch: The Game-Changer for Women That’s Sealing Sweden’s Smoke-Free Success.

The report presents fresh analysis of official health data, national surveys and focus groups, showing how tobacco-free oral nicotine pouches have been central to Sweden’s rapid progress toward becoming the world’s first smoke-free nation. The impact on women has been especially striking, with the quit rate among female smokers increasing by 200% since the introduction of pouches in 2016.

Germany, meanwhile, has 17 million smokers and a stagnating 24% adult smoking rate – the highest number of smokers in the EU, and almost five times Sweden’s rate.

Dr. Human, a former secretary-general of the World Medical Association, said the urgency for reform could not be more compelling.

“Germany is losing more lives to smoking each year than any other preventable cause. Sweden shows there is a faster, safer way to reduce this harm, where oral nicotine pouches act as a fire escape for people who cannot or do not want to quit cigarettes. Simply put – pouches have been a game-changer and life-saver in Sweden,” he said.

Yet Germany still bans the sale of nicotine pouches while allowing their consumption, a contradiction that has fuelled a booming illicit market. Dr. Human warns that the current approach is failing the very people it aims to protect.

“Prohibition hasn’t protected anyone. It has only driven people toward unregulated products. Smart regulation is the only credible path forward,” he noted.

As policymakers consider how to modernise the country’s tobacco-control framework amid ongoing international debate about nicotine alternatives following the recent COP11 stalemate, speakers at the event underlined the clear lessons from Sweden’s evidence-based strategy.

“When smokers are given access to safer, regulated alternatives, smoking rates fall dramatically. Germany now has the same opportunity to save lives, if it chooses to take it,” Dr. Human added.