Sweden has officially become a non-smoking country
https://omni.se/a/zO4MGq
Posted by KonserveradMelon
Sweden has officially become a non-smoking country
https://omni.se/a/zO4MGq
Posted by KonserveradMelon
32 Comments
Sweden has become smoke-free, reports TT, citing the Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs (CAN).
Today, less than five percent of the Swedish population smokes regularly, which is the council’s definition of a smoke-free country.
”It’s an incredible development that we’ve been able to reduce a harmful behavior this much,” says research director Mats Ramstedt.
He points to several factors behind this trend. On the one hand, it has become significantly more difficult and expensive to smoke; on the other hand, it has become significantly easier to get help to quit.
They replaced smoking with Snus. Same addiction to nicotine just a different way to consume it. At least it’s leading to less passive consumption of tobacco
Edit: and needless to say, but apparently I should, less risk of cancers especially for the lungs of everyone
That’s not including vapers, is it?
Another point that helped us achieve this is the cultural change.
Smoking is looked on like white trash/ low life, and people will look down on you for lighting a cigarette around other non-smoking people.
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Insane how all my neighbours are the 5% so I can’t keep my balcony/ windows open even for five minutes without my apartment getting filled with disgusting cigarette smoke.
[cries in Austrian]
Austria when?
I’d say around half the people I work with (I work in game development in Stockholm) use snus. It is crazy how many people do. Many foreigners start on it not long after coming to the country.
So there’s that.
I wish Switzerland would follow. It’s such a successful and well-educated country, yet so many smokers make other people’s lives more difficult.
A significantly larger portion uses snus though, in 2024 it was about 16% of the population. The health risks connected with snus seems to be fewer than smoking but it could also be a case of more research having been done on smoking. If it increases the risk of cancer is a bit unclear but it apparently decreases your chances of survival if you do get cancer.
As a smoker myself, good. I have been unfortunate enough to fall into this addiction, and its financial and health burden is sinister and subtle.
Make it as uncomfortoble and unpleasant to smoke as you can and give people a way out, if you have a friend thats trying to quit, bug them constantly with activities and such.
Would be interested to see how they assess this. The article doesn’t seem to state it either, at least on the mobile site. I’ve actually been pretty shocked by how many people I see smoking here in Sweden, and brazenly ignoring no smoking signs outside hospital entrances and such. It’s also the first place I’ve seen smoking rooms inside airports. Another thing is the amount of people who seem to smoke on their balconies or inside the apartment in the winters.
I always find it funny when I see people go from using snus to smoking and back to using snus.
It’s also notable how smoking is distributed in the age brackets ([stats](https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency-of-sweden/living-conditions-and-lifestyle/andtg/tobacco/use-of-tobacco-and-nicotine-products/)). In general, young people are less regular smokers, but slightly more common to smoke ‘ocasionally’. A plausible explanation could simply be party smoking.
An anecdotal observation is that due to the low number of smokers, we’ve done away with much of the social and physical infrastructure of smoking. You’re not allowed to smoke in restaurants, and it’s not that common with “smoking spaces” is public places like airports. I’m sure they *exist* somewhere, but it’s not something greatly accommodated. Likewise, smoke breaks in professional settings aren’t a given and most landlords would be sympathetic to people complaining about the smell of people smoking on balconies. I’d guess that also helps to bring down smoking rates, just by increasing the effort needed to sustain the habit.
Congrats
I never understood why snus is illegal in so many countries while cigarettes are not. Snus isnt good don’t get me wrong but it’s better than cigarettes for everyone involved.
Snus Central
I’ve seen a lot of people smoking as I’ve been in Stockholm. Just saw two people crowded into a glass box at the airport smoking right before passport control.
The main smokers are Eastern European immigrants or arabs
Brought to you by big snuss lobbying
I hope Germany and all of the EU Country’s becames non-smoking.
What about the snuss?
The last time I was there, the smokers were everywhere. I never saw so many smoking people
Everybody is snusing there
Wish this were a thing everywhere. I hate how normalized it is for people in my country to light up in the busiest public spaces. I don’t smoke, I don’t want to smoke, and the last thing I want when leaving the station is to be blasted up the nose with that gross tar. Not to mention people who smoke around their babies and kids, or on a terrace – I came to enjoy my beer and now I taste only smoke: cheers.
*snus has entered the chat*
>Today, less than five percent of the Swedish population smokes regularly, which is the council’s definition of a smoke-free country.
Hmmmm. The pedantic aspect of my personality me is unhappy with this particular definition
They will spit on the street in public no problem
* Headline: “Sweden has officially become a non-smoking country”
* Article: Nothing official at all, just a fluff piece highlighting a trend
“officially” is a word that attracts attention but is almost always used as hype. At this point I consider the word “officially” in headlines to be a red flag.
I don’t smoke and have never smoked, yet I can’t bring myself to like these policies of forced elimination of the possibility of smoking. There are many things that put our health at risk that they could decide to ban us “for our own good”, for example alcohol, in short, why smoking no but alcohol yes? Among other things, if you drink you can easily become a danger to society, which is difficult to happen with cigarettes. And at this point even unhealthy foods, even those are bad for us and cost society a lot in medical care and can be addictive. And social media? Social media can be devastating for people and society and it is a fact that they are addictive, then there are dangerous sports, human-driven cars, unprotected sex etc. Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous but I don’t like the idea of them banning us from doing whatever the hell we want with our lives for “our own good”, it’s a direction that I don’t know where it leads in my opinion.
Sorry for my bad english.
Snus has lower risk of cancer than smoking and is less annoying for other people. When I go abroad (from Sweden) I always think about how disgusting it is to smell tobacco smoke.
But snus is still a public nuisance. The snus users do not have the civic manners to dispose their snus in trash bins. But throw them everywhere they can.
I dont smoke but i dont support nanny states. This is as ridiculous as Singapore banning chewing gum.