New Year, new chance to quit: report shows smokers best way to kick their habit
BUENOS AIRES – As millions of smokers embark on New Year’s resolutions to quit, new evidence from international health experts proves that safer nicotine alternatives such as vapes and oral nicotine pouches offer their best chance of success.
The ground-breaking report from Smoke Free Sweden, Tale of Two Nations: Argentina v Sweden, reveals how countries that embrace modern quitting tools are eradicating smoking, while those that rely on bans and prohibition are seeing millions of lives being lost unnecessarily.
Sweden now has the lowest daily smoking rate in the European Union, at just 5.3%, close to the global benchmark for a smoke-free society. This dramatic decline – a 54% drop in just over a decade – has been driven by the widespread availability of safer, smoke-free alternatives including snus, nicotine pouches and vapes, which allow smokers to escape the toxic effects of combustion.
By contrast, Argentina’s daily smoking rate has begun rising again, climbing from 16.8% in 2018 to 17% in 2023, despite decades of traditional tobacco control measures. The report links this reversal to restrictive policies that ban or block access to safer nicotine products, leaving smokers with fewer viable ways to quit.
“Every January, smokers resolve to quit, and by February have already failed,” said report author Dr Delon Human, a former Secretary-General of the World Medical Association. “Sweden proves that quitting isn’t about willpower alone. When smokers are given safer alternatives like vapes and nicotine pouches, quitting becomes achievable rather than aspirational.
“Without modernising its approach, Argentina risks prolonging a smoking epidemic that evidence-based policies could dramatically reduce.”
Sweden’s success is embedded in science. The vast majority of smoking-related harm comes from inhaling toxic smoke produced by burning tobacco, not from nicotine itself. According to the UK Royal College of Physicians, vapes pose 5% of the health risk of smoking, while oral nicotine products are even less harmful.
Further evidence from Smoke Free Sweden shows nicotine pouches have proved to be the game-changer in their fight against smoking, particularly for women.
The Power in a Pouch report reveals that, since their introduction in Sweden in 2016, nicotine pouches have turbo-charged the decline in smoking rates for both genders, with an almost 200% rise in the quit rate among women.
Nationwide surveys analysed in the report show that pouches outperform all other quit aids, with both men and women ranking nicotine pouches as the most effective method. Pouches also emerged as the preferred quit aid for all ex-smokers due to their socially considerate, clean and stigma-free design.
Argentina maintains blanket bans on vaping products under 11-year-old legislation and it prohibited heated tobacco products in 2023, while nicotine pouches remain unregulated. This regressive stance forces smokers toward potentially dangerous black market alternatives or continued use of deadly combustible cigarettes.
“Sweden’s success stems from treating nicotine products according to their actual risk levels rather than applying blanket prohibition,” Dr Human said. “Sweden now has a male lung cancer death rate 61% lower than the European Union average, while Argentina has a smoking rate that’s over three times higher and continues losing more than 30,000 lives annually to smoking-related diseases.
“Sweden’s regulated market ensures product quality and generates tax revenue, while Argentina’s bans create regulatory uncertainty and drive growth in uncontrolled black markets.”
The Two Nations report calls for urgent policy reform in Argentina, recommending the country abandon its failed prohibitionist stance and develop modern regulatory frameworks that make safer alternatives accessible while maintaining appropriate safeguards.
Dr Human concluded: “Every day Argentina maintains its outdated bans, more preventable deaths occur. Sweden has provided a proven roadmap to save lives and it would be a public health tragedy if Argentina did not follow the evidence.”
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