EU tax crackdown on safer nicotine defies science and reality, expert warns
BRUSSELS – European policymakers are putting lives at risk with their unscientific push for punitive taxes on safer nicotine alternatives, a leading addiction researcher has warned.
Greek cardiologist Konstantinos Farsalinos said the European Commission’s approach to vaping and other smoke-free products defies reality and risks reversing progress against smoking, despite clear evidence from Sweden’s success.
“Sweden has proved it’s possible to eliminate smoking entirely,” he said. “But instead of following their lead, the EU is moving in the opposite direction.
“The EU acts as if harm reduction is the problem, not the solution.”
In Sweden, widespread access to safer nicotine products has driven smoking rates down to near smoke-free levels and the country now has the lowest rates of tobacco-related disease in Europe.
In an interview with Brussels Signal at the World Nicotine Congress in Brussels, Dr Farsalinos said Europe was targeting the very products that had secured Sweden’s success.
Noting recent claims by EU officials that alternative nicotine products pose risks comparable to smoking, Dr Farsalinos said: “It’s unacceptable from a scientific perspective, even from a common-sense perspective.
“When people hear scare stories about vaping, most don’t just give up nicotine, they go back to cigarettes.
“Every smoker who could have switched but doesn’t because of misinformation, because of high prices, because of bans… that’s a life at risk.
“The EU claims to care about public health. But right now, its policies are doing the opposite.”
Dr Delon Human, leader of Smoke Free Sweden, said: “As Dr Farsalinos warns, when policymakers disregard evidence and treat safer products like cigarettes, they are protecting the most dangerous products on the market.
“Europe needs less ideology and more results. Sweden has already delivered those and has provided the model that Europe should be trying to emulate with risk-proportionate regulation.”
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