EU Clive Bates (former director of ASH UK) offers most convincing arguments to repeal EU snus ban

[Bill Godshall]

Death by regulation: the EU ban on low-risk oral tobacco
Death by regulation: the EU ban on low-risk oral tobacco « Clive Bates blog

I strongly recommend this article for everyone interested in tobacco harm reduction and/or EU policies.

When he was director of ASH UK (from 1997-2003), Clive Bates helped convince me that tobacco harm reduction was, is and always will be a sound and essential public health strategy to reduce cigarette consumption in civil societies.

He's one of the best debaters I've ever had the pleasure of collaborating with.

 

[rolygate]

I submitted a comment but it wasn't published.

CB's article is indeed a fine piece of work and eloquently puts the health arguments. However, the point I made was that bans and restrictions on reduced harm products don't have health issues as their main cause, it's primarily a commercial issue. No doubt this wasn't a welcome addition to the argument; understandable since his research and collation of evidence on the health aspects is first class.

Nevertheless it is saddening to see people fighting on the health issues when no progress can be made unless the corruption and confliction issues are addressed first. Nobody in a position of influence is remotely interested in health unless it affects voting or their job prospects, since the financial consequences are too painful. It doesn't pay to change the status quo - everyone is satisfied with the current arrangements.

 

[Bill Godshall]

I'm surprised Clive wouldn't let rolygate's comment to be posted, but the EU's ban on snus sales was aggressively campaigned for by tobacco prohibitionists who insisted it was a public health issue.

Greg Connolly (who worked for the MA Health Dept at the time, now is at Harvard, and to my knowledge hasn't received any drug industry funding) aggressively lobbied the EU, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong (alongside anti smoking advocates from those countries who Greg convinced that snus was addictive, deadly and evil) to ban snus more than a decade ago.

While drug industry funding and lobbying has likely prevented the EU snus ban from being repealed in recent years, has influenced some groups in the EU (e.g. ASH UK) to back off their previous support for repealing the snus ban, and has likely influenced efforts to ban or restrict e-cigarettes in some EU countries, I don't recall drug industry funding as influencing the enactment of EU's snus ban.

But its possible, as there really wasn't any tobacco harm reduction advocacy movement or advocates (other than folks at Swedish Match) at that time.

 

[rolygate]

I think you are probably right, Bill, as it seems unlikely that the pharmaceutical industry would have fully appreciated the impact of harm reduction on their income at that time.