Regulatory developments

In June 2001, the EU amended the health warning "causes cancer" previously applied to smokeless tobacco products (Directive 92/41/EEC) to "this tobacco product can damage your health and is addictive", which is still applied today to tobacco products for oral use, where their marketing is permitted, and smokeless tobacco products (Directive 2001/37/EC).

The change was in response to a number of scientific studies indicating that Swedish snus is not associated with an increased risk of cancer in the oral cavity, and on that basis "…scientific opinion no longer supports a strong warning as is currently set out in Directive 92/41/EEC (´Causes Cancer´). It is therefore proposed to replace this warning with a more general one. This will better reflect the established health risks for such products..." (Explanatory Memorandum COM/99/0594 final - COD 99/0244). However, despite the new scientific evidence, a review of the prohibition of Swedish snus in the EU was not undertaken.

In December 2004, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that the prohibition on the marketing of tobacco products was valid following a legal challenge by Swedish Match on the grounds that it is unjustified, arbitrary, discriminatory and disproportionate. In particular that:

• Snus was not a new product, as it had been on the market in Sweden, Denmark and Norway for around 200 years prior to the prohibition.
• The scientific evidence that oral snuff was harmful used to justify the ban was not the best evidence available at the time, and more recent evidence proves even more strongly that the negative health effects of snus are small. The International Agency for Research into Cancer (IARC) report, which was the main source of the original analysis of the risks of oral tobacco, was based on studies that were almost exclusively on US and Asian oral tobacco products, not snus.
• The distinction between oral products intended to be sucked and those intended to be chewed is meaningless as almost all smokeless tobacco products including those intended to be chewed are used in the same way as snus. 

To view the ECJ press release please click here.