Tag: Denmark

‘Pouch Nicotine Limits will Drive Users to Smoking’

The Tholos Foundation released exclusive new research from international polling firm IPSOS on how Danish consumers would react if proposals to limit nicotine in nicotine pouches were implemented. In September 2024 the Danish Government published a “Draft Order on nicotine content limits in tobacco substitutes,”’ which proposed to introduce a limit of 9 mg per pouch.
Findings of the poll include that three quarters of consumers use nicotine pouches for health-related reasons, primarily to reduce or quit smoking. Since the introduction of nicotine pouches to Denmark in 2018, smoking rates have fallen from 19 percent to 14 percent in 2023, and the research shows close to 20 percent of current pouch users would return to smoking if this ban was implemented.
The poll also found that enacting such a proposal would lead to an explosion of black market sales, with fifty percent of consumers expecting to purchase illegally. The poll also found the vast majority of consumers do not support the proposed nicotine limit.
“The evidence is clear: nicotine pouches help consumers quit smoking and reduce harm. The proposed nicotine limit is a disaster for public health which will increase smoking rates, and create a huge black market,” said Tim Andrews, Tholos’ director of consumer issues.
“Eighty percent of consumers know nicotine pouches are helpful in reducing smoking rates, and believe governments should support less harmful alternatives to smoking – a powerful voting block. This is a clear sign to the government they should follow international best practices through introducing smart regulations based on research and evidence, which restrict sales to minors and prevent underaged experimentation, while still allowing adults the ability to quit smoking.”
In 2022 the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment conducted the world’s most comprehensive research into nicotine pouches, confirming their benefits in reducing health risks compared to smoking, and recommended regulation based around an optimal level of nicotine of 16.6mg per pouch.
November 21, 2024
Cigarette Sales Down in Denmark

Photo: Nikolay N. Antonov
Danish smokers bought 3.85 billion cigarettes in 2023, down 5.1 percent from 2022, according to the country’s statistics agency. This corresponds to 804 cigarettes per adult Dane, compared with 854 in the previous year.
Cigarette sales in Denmark started falling in 2018 and have declined by 32 percent since that year.
The sale of smoking tobacco, which includes loose tobacco for pipes and roll-your-own cigarettes, dropped from 378 tons in 2022 to 320 tons in 2023.
Sales of cigars and cigarillos remained unchanged at 22 million pieces in 2023
June 14, 2024
Price Hikes Drive Purchases Abroad

Photo: mema
Consecutive price hikes appear to have prompted Danish smokers to purchase more cigarettes abroad, reports The Local.
In 2019, Danish smokers purchased 250 million cigarettes in shops across the border. By 2022, that number increased to 700 million, according to the Ministry of Taxation. That reflects a rise in spending from DKR410 million ($60.34 million) to DKR1.15 billion.
The figures coincide with the rise in price of cigarettes in Denmark. Between 2020 and 2022, the price of a pack of cigarettes increased from DKR40 to DKR60.
“The Ministry of Taxation’s figures speak for themselves,” Janick Nytoft, managing director of The Cooperative Merchants, an industry organization, was quoted as saying by newswire Ritzau. “You cannot raise taxes in Denmark without increased cross-border trade. Cigarettes bought abroad do not make the Danes healthier, but the treasury and the shops poorer,”
Meanwhile, a 2022 survey of smoking habits, showed that the rise is cigarette prices had not significantly reduced the number of smokers in Denmark.
In 2022, 19 percent of people in Denmark smoked daily or occasionally, compared to 18 percent recorded in 2020. Among 15-19 year olds, smoking incidence actually increased. In 2022, 25 percent of this age group said they smoked daily or occasionally—up from 23 percent in 2022. The same age group also experienced a rise in users of e-cigarettes and smokeless nicotine products.
Health activists said the tax ministry’s numbers proved that the price hikes had been too modest. Mads Lind, chief consultant at the Heart Association, urged the government to increase prices to DKR100 per pack.
In addition to price hikes, Denmark has been debating other measures to reduce the number of smokers. Other proposals include plain packaging, restrictions on product displays and a so-called generational tobacco ban, which would prohibit sales to people born after a certain date.
According to the National Health Authority, around 13,600 people die every year from smoking in Denmark.
July 8, 2023
More Danes Quit Smoking During Covid

Photo: sezerozger
Danish smokers bought less tobacco, and more of them quit smoking than usual during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new research from the University of Copenhagen that monitored cigarette purchases from the March 2020 lockdown through the end of the year. Those who kept puffing also purchased significantly less tobacco, the study showed.
Among other things, the figures reveal that regular smokers bought 20 percent fewer cigarettes each week than before the pandemic. Meanwhile, the number of those who quit increased by 10 percent from the year prior.
“The big picture is that cigarette consumption fell during the pandemic,” said study author Toke Reinholt Fosgaard, associate professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Food and Resource Economics. “It comes as somewhat of a surprise as one would expect to see people smoking more during a pandemic, a time when people felt worse psychologically and had fewer opportunities to move about. Yet, the opposite occurred.”
Fosgaard attributes the decline in tobacco consumption to the fact that smokers are at greater risk of developing severe Covid symptoms. “For a smoker, the consequences of smoking became more immediate, rather than a consequence in old age, as smokers suffer more severe cases of Covid,” he said.
August 31, 2022
Denmark to Consider Sales Ban for Those Born After 2010

Photo: Tobacco Reporter archive
Denmark is considering a tobacco sales ban for anyone born after 2010, reports The Guardian and Geo News.
“Our hope is that all people born in 2010 and later will never start smoking or using nicotine-based products,” Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said. “If necessary, we are ready to ban the sale (of these products) to this generation by progressively raising the age limit.”
The current age of purchase is 18 years old. The health ministry stated that about 31 percent of 15-year-olds to 29-year-olds smoke.
A Danish Cancer Society poll showed that 64 percent of those surveyed were in favor of the proposed ban, with 67 percent being between the ages of 18 and 34.
Denmark’s proposed ban would be similar to that recently enacted in New Zealand, which will progressively raise the purchase age limit.
March 18, 2022
Denmark Adopts Plain Packaging

An example of plain packaging from Australia, which pioneered the concept.
(Photo: Taco Tuinstra)
In December 2020, the Danish Parliament adopted an amendment to the Tobacco Act establishing a requirement to ensure that “each unit pack and any outer packaging [of tobacco products] has a standardized design,” according to the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control. This requirement does not apply to cigars and pipe tobacco.
Subsequently, the minister of health issued Executive Order 572 of March 2021 detailing the standardized design and packaging requirements applicable to individual packets, outer and inner packaging and packaging material of tobacco products and herbal smoking products. These include standardized design requirements regarding surfaces, text, wrapping material and markings. Executive Order 699 of April 2021 further extends the applicability of plain packaging provisions to electronic cigarettes and refill containers with and without nicotine.
The measures for tobacco and herbal smoking products went into force on July 1, 2021, and come into full force on April 1, 2022.
The measures for electronic cigarettes and refill containers will come into force on Oct. 1, 2021, and come into full force on Oct. 1, 2022.
July 6, 2021
Fewer Smokers but More Nicotine Users

Photo: sezerozger
While the number of young Danes smoking cigarettes has fallen, the number of young people who use at least one tobacco or nicotine-related product has increased since last year from 27 percent to 28.6 percent, reports the Copenhagen Post, citing a new report released by the National Institute of Public Health.
Researcher Lotus Sofie Bast noted that the April 1, 2020, cigarette excise tax increase drove the nicotine consumption habits of young people from the more expensive cigarettes to less expensive vapor products. The report will be an annual examination of young people’s tobacco and nicotine habits.
Researchers hope to monitor the effect of newer measures like higher cigarette prices, standardized tobacco packaging and products hidden behind the counter in the coming years.
June 27, 2021
Illegal Cigarette Factory Dismantled in Denmark
Police arrested 13 individuals for smuggling counterfeit cigarettes from a clandestine factory in Denmark to the United Kingdom, reports Europol.
A timely exchange of intelligence via Europol between the Danish, Dutch and Polish investigators facilitated the investigation carried out in the framework of the European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats.
On March 2, law enforcement officers dismantled an illegal cigarette factory in Vamdrup. This is the first illegal cigarette factory to be dismantled in Denmark. Police arrested 13 individuals of Polish and Ukrainian nationality and confiscated 11 million cigarettes alongside 11 tons of raw tobacco and a full production line.
Forensic analysis is still ongoing to quantify the factory’s exact production capacity, which is presumably several million cigarettes per week.
The value of the seized tobacco products on the illegal market in the United Kingdom is believed to be in the region of €13 million ($15.5 million).
The action in Denmark led to another one in the Netherlands that same week. Investigators of the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service searched the premises of a warehouse in Ospel. Eight pallets of contraband cigarettes stored in maritime containers were seized, worth close to €1 million in the destination market.
The cigarettes produced in Denmark were shipped to the U.K. via the Netherlands.
March 12, 2021
EU Opposes Danish Flavor Ban

Photo: Sharon Ang from Pixabay
The European Commission has opposed a ban on vaping flavors put forward by the Danish government, according to the U.K. Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA).
“It is a victory both for vaping and common sense,” said UKVIA Director John Dunne said in a statement.
John Dunne
Denmark wants to introduce a flavor ban on both nicotine and non-nicotine containing e-liquids, where only tobacco and menthol flavors will be permitted. According to the Danish Vapers Association (DADAFO), the proposed ban would have affected between 85 percent and 90 percent of adult vapers in Denmark with the potential of driving up to 70,000 Danish ex-smokers back to cigarettes. The move would have also forced 90 percent of vape shops to close, DADAFO said.
“Flavors play a hugely important role in encouraging smokers to switch to vaping, a much less harmful product,” said Dunne. “Crucially, vape flavors provide choices for ex-smokers to ensure they do not relapse.”
“The effect of banning flavored liquids on deterring adult vapers from using vape products to help them quit or reduce their smoking was acknowledged by Public Health England earlier this year in its annual vaping evidence review. The review also stated that a ban could also push current adult vapers towards illicit products.”
According to the European Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates, the Danish Ministry of Health sent a notification of this to the European Commission on April 17 with a standstill period of three months during which the Commission had to comment whether it believes that the Danish government can legally amend the existing laws as proposed.
October 2, 2020
Pregnant finding
Researchers at the Department of Drug Design and Pharmacology of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, say that tobacco smokers who become pregnant cannot protect their fetuses sufficiently by undertaking a quit-tobacco-smoking course, according to a story by Stephen Gadd for The Copenhagen Post.
“When a pregnant woman uses nicotine chewing-gum or any other form of nicotine substitute in connection with stopping smoking, she risks damaging her fetus as much as if she’d continued to smoke,” associate professor and brain researcher Jesper Tobias Andreasen, was said to have told BT tabloid.
The negative effects were said to be caused by nicotine’s reducing the flow of blood through the placenta leading to the fetus not receiving enough oxygen to the brain. This could cause conditions such as ADHD, anxiety, depression and addictive tendencies later in life.
Andreasen points out that a ‘stop smoking’ course is all very well but the only safe way to do it is to go ‘cold turkey’ – without any form of nicotine substitutes.
Vaping was said also to present a risk to the fetus because the levels of nicotine in the liquids used contained ‘very variable amounts and often more than normal cigarettes’.
Up to now, the Copenhagen research has been carried out on mice. But Andreasen said that it was known “from extensive studies that people who have been exposed to nicotine in the womb show a higher propensity to ADHD, anxiety, depression and drug abuse”.
The researchers say they intend to publish their findings in a scientific journal within the next couple of months.

March 25, 2019