ESTOC's proposal: a new science-based product regulation

ESTOC supports the rights and responsibilities of governments to regulate all tobacco products, including smokeless tobacco. However, such regulation needs to be based on scientific evidence, ensuring it is both fair and proportional. ESTOC, therefore, welcomes further public debate on how smokeless tobacco can help to limit the harm from tobacco consumption and how new regulation could be framed.

ESTOC proposes a new regulation for smokeless tobacco products (snus, chewing tobacco, oral and nasal snuff), which is science-based, addresses consumer protection and has food regulation as one of the guiding principles. The new potential regulation includes requirements for: nicotine, constituents (e.g. nitrosamines), pesticide residues, ingredients, non-tobacco materials, packaging materials, labeling, consumer information and reporting and surveillance.

ESTOC believes that current definition of smokeless tobacco should be updated:

Smokeless tobacco should define all products that are not smoked, are used orally or inhaled through the nose. It should meet the constituent limits of a science based product regulation for smokeless products, instead of the current situation where market access of smoke free products is based on how the product is used and not the quality and the relative risk of it.

As such, ESTOC seeks to replace the EU definition of "tobacco for oral use" and the provision "Member States shall prohibit the placing on the market of tobacco for oral use"

EU Directive 2001/37/EC Article 2 Definitions

EU: 'tobacco for oral use' means all products for oral use, except those intended to be smoked or chewed, made wholly or partly of tobacco, in powder or in particulate form or in any combination of those forms, particularly those presented in sachet portions or porous sachets, or in a form resembling a food product

ESTOC proposal: 'smokeless tobacco' means all products that are not smoked, are used orally or inhaled through the nose and meet the constituent limits defined in Annex IV.

EU Directive 2001/37/EC Article 8 Tobacco for oral use

EU: Member States shall prohibit the placing on the market of tobacco for oral use, without prejudice to Article 151 of the Act of Accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden.

ESTOC proposal: Member States shall require that only smokeless tobacco products that comply with the constituent limits and reporting requirements in Annex IV be permitted to be placed on the market.