The Snus Commission – this year’s misleader

Every year, the Misleader of the Year is chosen. This is an organization or person who, either voluntarily or through gross negligence, has contributed to creating confusion and uncertainty about scientific methods and results.

“Causes confusion”

The Snus Commission receives the award for repeated misleading claims about nicotine, according to the Swedish Association for Science and Public Education.

”The Snus Commission emphasizes that white snus can help tobacco-dependent individuals reduce their tobacco use. However, statistics show that most people who use white snus are young people who have not previously used tobacco. The Snus Commission is thus contributing to making many teenagers and young adults addicted to nicotine, perhaps for the rest of their lives. This has negative consequences for the health, behavior, and finances of nicotine-dependent individuals,” the award citation states.

The Snus Commission conveys a highly biased view of the use of white snus. The Snus Commission ignores the fact that nicotine quickly leads to addiction, especially among young people and particularly young women. Such selective information can be considered disinformation says Tomas Furmark, professor of psychology and board member of the association Vetenskap och Folkbildning (Science and Public Education).

Affects non-smokers

Svenska Dagbladet writes that the chairman of the Snus Commission, Stig-Björn Ljunggren, disagrees with the criticism. He does not think that only one side of the coin is being shown.

”Harm minimization is our principle. So it is better to use snus than to smoke – but the best thing would be to eat carrots. We usually say that we don’t want people to use more snus, but rather that they should smoke less,” he says.

Stig-Björn Ljunggren says that they are also critical of the high nicotine content in the white pouches, and that he believes marketing should be more restrained.

Tomas Furmark, from the Swedish Association for Science and Public Education, tells Svenska Dagbladet that while he agrees that snus is better for your health than cigarettes, he thinks the Commission is ignoring a bigger public health problem.

They are promoting it as a substitute for smoking. But what might help some people could be harmful to a lot of others. There is a risk of making people, especially young people, nicotine-dependent for life,” says Tomas Furmark.

Footnote: The Snus Commission’s website states that the commission is funded by the Swedish Snus Manufacturers’ Association, but that the commission reaches its conclusions without influence from its financiers.

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