Sweden Hits Smoke-Free Goal of Under 5% Daily Smokers
CAN said daily smoking fell from 16% in 2003 to 4.8% in 2025, as Sweden became the first country to meet its smoke-free target.
- Sweden reached its goal of becoming smoke-free in 2025, with daily smokers falling to 4.8 percent of the population, according to the Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs.
- Mats Ramstedt, head of research at the Swedish Council, credited broad preventative work including advertising bans and higher taxes that made smoking both harder and more expensive since 2003.
- While cigarette smoking declined, 24 percent of Swedes used nicotine daily in 2025, with around 19 percent using snus daily and snus use among women rising from four percent to 14 percent.
- Ramstedt disputed snus as the decisive factor in reducing smoking, stating, "My assessment is that there is a lack of studies proving this, and I would maintain that it is primarily down to preventative measures."
- The CAN report noted that far less is known about the long-term health effects of new nicotine products compared to cigarettes, though nicotine remains highly addictive.
22 Articles
22 Articles
Sweden becomes the first European country to call itself "tobacco-free". According to a report published on Monday 25 May by the Swedish Council on Alcohol and Drugs, less than 5% of Swedish people smoke daily, a symbolic threshold also set by the World Health Organisation, but the reduction in smoking is not fully correlated with a decrease in nicotine consumption.
The number of daily smokers decreased from 16% to 4.8% between 2003 and 2025, according to a report published by the Swedish Information Council on Alcohol and Other Drugs.
The country has achieved its goal, but a quarter of the population still consumes nicotine on a daily basis, says the Swedish Alcohol and Other Drug Information Council in its paper released on Monday, 25 May.
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