They look like miniature tea bags containing a white substance that in some cases contains as much nicotine as smoking several cigarettes together. The sachets come in attractive cans with flavors such as “lime and cucumber”, “caramel macchiato” or “lemon spritz”, among others. As if it were chewing gum, the way to introduce nicotine into your body is to place the sachet on your gums, without anyone seeing, smelling or bothering you, and its effect lasts about 30 minutes. It is white snus, and its consumption among adolescents has been skyrocketing for years in Sweden, while in countries like Spain and France attempts are being made to prevent its arrival.
Although it has been classified as a risk by the Swedish Public Health Agency, the conservative government in Stockholm has ruled out any type of regulation and is fighting against the tide so that white snus is not banned in the rest of the European Union countries. Lobby groups and tobacco companies present white snus as a less risky substitute than cigarettes, while the Swedish executive defends that it is part of the Nordic country’s way of life.
These nicotine sachets should not be confused with brown snus, which contains tobacco, and their sale has been banned since 1992 in all EU countries except Sweden, where a tailor-made exception was made upon the country’s accession to the Union. Twenty years later, the Nordic country is still the largest producer of brown and white snus and is considered a national product with 200 years of history, as the museum dedicated to snus in Stockholm explains.
Part of the Swedish “lifestyle”
Arguing that white snus packets are not as dangerous as cigarettes, there is a political consensus in Sweden that they should not be banned. Instead, officials say it would benefit public health if more smokers switched from conventional cigarettes to snus, an argument supported by manufacturers and tobacco industry lobbies. Thanks to this strategy, one in five Swedes – almost a third of men – regularly consume snus, while the smoking rate in the Nordic country has fallen to less than 6%, the lowest level in Europe. Additionally, since the current government came to power in 2022, taxes on brown snus have been reduced by 18%.
However, European countries where snus is not traditionally consumed are seeing how its growing popularity represents a new way for younger generations to become addicted to nicotine. For now, the fact that white snus sachets do not contain tobacco means that they are not included in anti-smoking regulations, which is why in most European countries white snus is sold and consumed without any controls.
Faced with this problem, the last countries to propose regulations were Spain and France. On the side of the Spanish Ministry of Health, the strategy consists of limiting the nicotine content authorized in sachets to 0.99 mg, which in practice means a ban on snus. In France, the ban on white snus should come into force on April 1, 2026, following the same path initiated in Belgium, Lithuania and the Netherlands.
But the Swedish government has not stood idly by in the face of the wave of regulations. Trade Minister Benjamin Dousa said that “white snus is under attack in more and more EU countries”, and that the government will therefore use all legal tools to stop this attack. For the conservative minister, the arguments to defend the legality of white snus in the rest of the EU countries are twofold: “It is a question of freedom for Swedish consumers of white snus to be able to travel, work and live in other EU countries. And it is also a question of defending employment, since the snus industry employs many people in the country.” “This is part of our way of life and the government will not tolerate Brussels persecuting Swedish snus consumers,” the minister said in an interview with the newspaper. Dagens Nyheter.
For now, the Spanish and French governments presented their draft legislation to the EU last May which plans to ban flavorings in electronic cigarettes and which includes the maximum reduction of the nicotine content of white snus. The proposal has received objections from several member states, including Sweden, arguing that the national bans that Spain and France plan to approve violate the European principle of free movement of goods. With this official complaint, the government in Stockholm managed to extend the deadline for the EU to approve the ban by a few months.
Aggressive marketing campaigns
In Sweden, the stores of Swedish Match, the Swedish tobacco and nicotine giant owned by Philip Morris, are eye-catching and can be found on main streets in towns across the country. The windows and interior decoration of the stores are carefully selected to attract a young audience increasingly addicted to nicotine and the marketing campaigns of the companies producing snus have also reached social networks and influencers.
Neurologist from the University of Gothenburg, Louise Adermark, criticized in an interview with Svenska Dagbladet that “pressure groups have succeeded in presenting snus as a safe product.” However, public health experts contradict this point of view since, according to the latest study carried out by Norwegian researchers on the subject, there is a clear link between snus and the appearance of esophageal and pancreatic cancers. Furthermore, Adermark added that “there is also no scientific evidence that snus helps reduce tobacco consumption,” he said.
Despite the lack of regulation enjoyed by snus in Sweden, the Public Health Agency advocates banning snus in schools and suggests extending the ban also to teachers during school hours in order to denormalize its consumption. This proposal immediately provoked a strong reaction from the Minister of Education, Simona Mohamson, describing the measure as “moralistic”: the working environment for teachers has deteriorated in recent times, it would be a lack of consideration on the part of teachers to make the situation even worse with the ban on snus,” she declared.
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