The European Union is entering a potentially decisive period for tobacco harm reduction. With its latest tobacco consultation now closed, Brussels must decide whether future regulation will recognise the very different risks posed by cigarettes, vapes, heated tobacco products and nicotine pouches—or increasingly treat them as variations of the same problem.
Was the consultation truly neutral?
His concern is particularly relevant to tobacco harm reduction because combining fundamentally different nicotine products within broad regulatory questions can obscure differences in relative risk. Polosa argues that reducing smoking-related disease and mortality should remain the central objective and that future EU legislation should clearly distinguish combustible cigarettes from non-combustible alternatives.
Protecting youth without protecting cigarettes
However, preventing youth nicotine use and encouraging adults to stop smoking do not have to be competing objectives. Age restrictions, responsible retailing, product standards and appropriately designed marketing rules can protect minors without removing potentially valuable alternatives from adults who smoke. The danger comes when youth protection becomes justification for eliminating distinctions between combustible and smoke-free products.
The excellent model that Europe refuses to acknowledge
Norwegian tobacco researcher Karl E. Lund believes policymakers should look more closely at Scandinavia. Rather than focusing exclusively on eliminating nicotine consumption, Lund argues that regulation should help people who cannot or do not wish to stop using nicotine move away from smoking. Sweden is particularly important because cigarettes have increasingly been displaced by non-combustible alternatives such as snus and nicotine pouches.
That argument becomes increasingly relevant when considering the estimated 90–100 million Europeans who still smoke despite decades of taxation, advertising restrictions, health warnings and smoke-free policies. Traditional tobacco control has achieved substantial progress. The issue is whether the remaining smoking population will respond to ever-tighter versions of the same policies—or whether substitution should become a larger part of Europe’s strategy.
Harsh restrictions support the illicit market
The growing belief that vaping is as dangerous as smoking demonstrates what can happen when public-health messages emphasise uncertainty without adequately explaining the magnitude of risk.
Retailers have raised another concern: poorly calibrated regulation may shift sales rather than eliminate demand. The European Confederation of Tobacco Retailers has warned that disproportionate restrictions could disadvantage compliant businesses while benefiting illicit sellers. Lund has raised similar concerns, arguing that regulators need to consider the real-world consequences of making legal alternatives less attractive or accessible.
Perhaps the most overlooked issue in the consultation is how Europe communicates relative risk. The growing belief that vaping is as dangerous as smoking demonstrates what can happen when public-health messages emphasise uncertainty without adequately explaining the magnitude of risk. Even youth data challenge the assumption that exaggerated perceptions necessarily discourage experimentation: in 2024, 58% of British 11–17-year-olds who knew about vaping believed it was as harmful or more harmful than smoking, yet ASH noted that such beliefs did not appear to prevent young people from trying vapes.
Accurate communication therefore matters for both credibility and informed decision-making.
What will Brussels do with the responses this time round?
Stricter tobacco-control groups are pushing Brussels in the opposite direction, calling for tougher regulation of newer products, stronger restrictions on online promotion and greater freedom for Member States to impose additional measures. Agricultural representatives, meanwhile, have complained that the consultation did not adequately capture their sector’s concerns.
Europe therefore faces a choice that extends well beyond flavours, advertising or packaging. It can increasingly regulate nicotine by its presence, or regulate products by their risks. For tobacco harm reduction advocates, the test of the consultation’s credibility will now be straightforward: whether Brussels genuinely listens to the evidence it asked Europeans to provide.
From Poland to Lithuania: Are Europe’s Nicotine Policies Reasonable or Going Too Far?
