The deadliest nicotine product ever invented remains legal, visible, and routine. It is there in convenience stores, in the crumpled packs carried in a pocket, in the break during the workday, on the corner, in the habit itself. Almost everywhere, the combustible cigarette remains so readily available that its chemical violence nearly dissolves into the landscape.

The paradox requires no rhetoric. Around it, however, the language of prudence shifts in tone. Nicotine products that are substantially less dangerous, though backed by different kinds and degrees of evidence, such as vapes, snus, nicotine pouches, and heated tobacco, circulate in many countries under a regime of suspicion denser than the one reserved for the cigarette itself. In some places, they are banned. In others, they are tolerated grudgingly, hemmed in by restrictions or described in a public language that treats gradations of risk as though they were morally intolerable concessions.

This is where the Global Forum on Nicotine stops seeming like merely a niche conference. Since 2014, the gathering in Warsaw has become one of the clearest places in which this contradiction is examined without the easy protection of ready-made formulas. Researchers, physicians, regulators, consumers, industry representatives, web activists and harm-reduction advocates come together there not as a harmonious community but as a dissonant assembly, drawn by an impasse the global debate has yet to face with much honesty: how to lessen the deadly burden of smoking in a field where, for many institutions, distinguishing degrees of risk remains more uncomfortable than pretending they do not exist.

The question begins, in part, with Gerry Stimson, the British public-health social scientist and one of the defining figures in the history of harm reduction. In 2013, after years of watching part of the European debate treat tobacco and nicotine as though they belonged to the same moral order, Stimson arrived at a diagnosis almost too plain to be palatable: public health was failing to distinguish between what creates dependence and what, in combustion, causes death.

“We have known for a long time that people smoke for nicotine and die from the gases and tar.”

The line, which Stimson brought back at the Forum’s first gathering, needed no embellishment. It revealed a fault line. On one side stood the possibility of thinking in terms of relative risk, harm reduction, and regulatory innovation, without treating every nicotine product as if it were the burning cigarette. On the other stood a stubborn public grammar in which nicotine, combustion, and harm are still fused into the same condemnation.

From that fracture came the first Global Forum on Nicotine, held in Warsaw in June of 2014, with support from collaborators including Paddy Costall and Andrzej Sobczak. Some 220 participants from 26 countries attended the first gathering. The meeting was small. The problem was not. The Forum’s purpose was already clear: to create a space in which that distinction could be examined before it was moralized, flattened, or consigned to silence.

Since then, the GFN has become something more than an annual conference. It has served as a seismograph for the tensions reshaping the debate over nicotine, smoking, and harm reduction. With each edition, what returns is not simply a new theme but the same conflict particles in altered form: between evidence and orthodoxy, between the lived experience of people who smoke and the institutional languages that presume to speak for them, between the possibility of reducing harm and the persistent temptation to treat nuance itself as a form of weakness.

Over the years, the GFN began to take shape as a kind of recurring map of the tensions, shifts, and impasses reorganizing the debate over nicotine and smoking. Each edition captured less an isolated theme than the momentary state of a larger dispute.

In 2015, the dispute came into sharper focus. With “A Different Kind of Endgame” as its theme, the Forum began asking not only how smoking might end but also what sort of ending was being imagined. For years, the prevailing assumption had been that the cigarette would be defeated chiefly by ratcheting up pressure on people who smoke and on the industry. What the GFN began to frame more clearly at that point was another possibility: that lower-risk nicotine products might speed the cigarette’s decline by a route many still resisted recognizing, especially within public health itself.

The opening of the conference already made clear the axis of that shift. In the Michael Russell Oration, Derek Yach warned that the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control would need a radical shift in emphasis to remain relevant. The point was straightforward: separating nicotine from tobacco-control policy was no longer some marginal provocation; it was becoming a precondition for thinking about the end of the cigarette itself without the usual rhetorical reflexes. By 2015, the GFN was beginning to show that the dispute was not just about products. It was about who would claim the authority to define the public-health horizon of the endgame.

By 2016, the ground was already beginning to shift. Under the banner Evidence, Accountability and Transparency, the Forum addressed a fast-changing landscape in which new nicotine-delivery systems were advancing faster than institutions could assess them without reverting to habit. The problem was no longer simply the arrival of new products, but the asymmetry between the speed of innovation and the slowness and, in some cases, the reluctance of regulatory response. In that setting, transparency and accountability referred not only to the data themselves. They also referred to the institutional and personal positions through which those data were being interpreted.

In his opening remarks, David Sweanor summed up the scale of the dispute: hundreds of millions of lives were at stake, along with hundreds of billions of dollars and the reputations of entire groups and individuals, all of it unfolding in an environment saturated with beliefs that were at once deeply entrenched and badly misinformed.

That year, the GFN was beginning to show that the debate over nicotine would be fought not only over evidence, but over who could be trusted to interpret it honestly and to expose, without pretense, the interests bound up in it. The European premiere of Aaron Biebert’s A Billion Lives pushed that shift further: the conflict was no longer calling only for regulation. It was also calling for a narrative.

By 2017, the Forum was speaking more plainly. With the theme Reducing Harm, Saving Lives, a sharper conviction was coming into view: ignoring lower-risk alternatives was not a way of preserving neutrality, but a way of consenting, through omission, to avoidable harm. As the science advanced and the regulatory landscape shifted by degrees, it became harder to keep treating harm reduction as a marginal hypothesis or a rhetorical concession. What was at stake was beginning to be stated with greater candor: if products less dangerous than the combustible cigarette exist, then rejecting them outright is also a choice, and one with a human cost.

That year’s Michael Russell Oration carried the shift further by another path. In “Drug Control and Tobacco Control: Parallels, Reform and Advocacy,” Ethan Nadelmann suggested that the debate over smoking had something to learn from the history of drug policy, particularly from the repeated failure of models that leave consumers out of the process and confuse protection with tutelage.

The first edition of the International Symposium on Nicotine Technology (ISoNTech), brought into the Forum that same year, extended the movement: the dispute was no longer only regulatory or epidemiological. It was also lodged in the material reality of innovation—the devices, their engineering, their evolution—and in the way technology might, in practice, reconfigure the possibilities of moving away from the cigarette.

With each edition, the same dissonance reappeared in a different form. On one side was a growing body of data, studies, successful regulatory experience, and testimony from consumers who had shifted away from cigarettes using noncombustible products. On the other hand, there was the persistence of a political culture hostile to nuance, in which distinguishing degrees of risk seemed more dangerous than preserving a single moral pedagogy.

By 2018, under the banner Rethinking Nicotine, the Forum was no longer arguing only about how to interpret the evidence, but about the very language in which the debate was conducted. The point was to rethink nicotine’s place in public health without falling back, by force of habit, on the inherited grammar of tobacco control as if every form of use had to bear, untouched, the cigarette’s historical guilt.

The growing presence of consumers, the creation of the Michael Russell Award, presented to Lars Ramström, and the launch of the Tobacco Harm Reduction Film Festival all suggested that the field was widening: it was no longer enough simply to produce data; it was necessary to contest the images, symbols, and narratives through which those data would be made legible.

In 2019, the forum returns under the theme “It’s Time to Talk About Nicotine.” It was no longer just a matter of rethinking nicotine, but of bringing it out of the regime of silence, discomfort, and simplification that public debate had built around it.

To talk about nicotine, in that context, was to reopen distinctions that much of the language of public health had learned to suppress: between the cigarette and nicotine, between combustion and consumption, between the ideal of abstinence and the possible reduction of harm.

It was meant to compel public health to recover a language capable of recognizing degrees of difference. And, with them, differences in fate.

The growing interest in that shift was already evident in the scale of the gathering: nearly 600 participants came to Warsaw that year, a significant increase over previous editions.

In accepting the Michael Russell Award, David Abrams distilled one of the crucial points the Forum had been trying to restore to the center of the debate: the issue was not only one of product, risk, or regulation, but whether people trying, in concrete ways, to change their relationship to nicotine would be met with acceptance, understanding, and compassion. “It’s about the people, the people and the people,” he said.

By 2019, the GFN was showing that the dispute over nicotine was not only about toxicology or policy. It was also about the moral imagination through which public health chooses to regard people who smoke.

Then the pandemic arrived, and with it a new kind of test.

In 2020, like nearly every international gathering, the GFN was pushed online. In its case, though, the shift did not reduce it to a digital replica. In some respects, it enlarged it. The need to build its own broadcast platform enabled the Forum to reach more people, launch GFN TV, and give its debate ecosystem a more continuous and visible form.

That year’s edition, with more than two thousand participants from over a hundred countries, made plain what had been visible for some time: the discussion around nicotine and tobacco was not only scientific or regulatory. It was also ethical, political, and deeply bound up with the language of rights and the everyday lives of ordinary people.

In a year defined by the theme “Nicotine: Science, Ethics and Human Rights,” the meeting brought together more than thirty speakers over two days to examine not only the growing body of evidence in favor of harm reduction but also the intensifying attacks on researchers, academics, and professionals associated with the field.

Entire organizations were being discredited; real or alleged ties were used as a mechanism of disqualification; and public debate seemed increasingly willing to descend into ad hominem attack.

It was in that atmosphere, saturated with fear, misinformation, and narrative struggle, that issues such as the lung-injury crisis known as EVALI took on particular weight, along with its mistaken attribution to nicotine vaping rather than to illicit THC products, the moral panic around youth use, and the influence of major philanthropists on the language and priorities of public health.

By 2020, the GFN was showing that the conflict no longer turned only on disputes over the evidence. It also turned on the very conditions that made debate possible.

In 2021, still under the shadow of the pandemic, the GFN began to press a question that carried the debate beyond the immediate crisis: what is the future of nicotine?

The formulation sounds abstract only at a distance. Up close, it drags behind it questions of science and investment, global inequality and consumer behavior, regulatory capacity and control policy, and at the center of it all, the persistent friction between orthodoxy and innovation.

Organized around The Future for Nicotine, that year’s program examined both the advances already visible in the world of lower-risk products and the often abrasive relationship between science and policy, the impact of technological innovation on public health, and the repeated failure of international bodies to hasten the end of the cigarette.

The Forum had not yet fully returned to an in-person format. The 2021 edition adopted a hybrid model, with a small core of speakers and attendees on site and broader participation online.

But that constraint revealed something else: the GFN was no longer functioning only as a gathering but as a platform for mediation, commentary, and archiving.

The creation of the GFN Commentary Team and the introduction of #GFNFives, which replaced academic posters with short videos submitted by participants, pointed to that change in scale.

By 2021, the Forum was making it clearer still that the dispute over nicotine would not be decided solely by the production of evidence or the drafting of rules. It would also depend on who managed to interpret, translate, and circulate that evidence in an increasingly fragmented public sphere.

When the Forum returned to Warsaw in person in 2022, it no longer made sense to think of it as merely an annual conference. The GFN had become an infrastructure for debate: a machine for producing, recording, translating, and circulating controversy.

The hybrid format, the broadcasts, the #GFNFives shorts, the GFN TV commentary, and the simultaneous translation expanded the Forum’s reach and altered its nature. What was at stake was no longer simply bringing people together in one city, but creating the conditions for certain ideas to travel beyond the room, cross borders, and remain open to public scrutiny. In a field so shaped by caricature, silencing, denial, and moral simplification, that was no mere technical detail. It was a form of intellectual intervention.

That year’s program gave real substance to the shift in scale. The Forum confronted misinformation around harm reduction head-on, examined the role of philanthropy in the field, returned to the uncomfortable question of the Framework Convention’s failure to bring smoking down in any meaningful way, debated the transformation of the industry without the usual comfort of ready-made formulas, and insisted that the problem was not exhausted by vaping, but pointed instead to an entire continuum of risk and displacement away from the combustible cigarette.

Other questions were also returning, now in sharper outline, questions that would no longer be marginal from that point forward: academic freedom in the field of tobacco control, and the question of whether regulation was actually helping to reduce smoking or simply narrowing the alternatives available.

The Michael Russell Award, given that year to Brad Rodu in recognition of more than two decades of research and advocacy for access to safer products, confirmed the sense that the GFN was no longer content merely to observe the dispute. It was becoming more and more one of the places where that dispute found language, contour, and public force.

The Forum’s tenth edition, in 2023, offered a rare chance to look back on its own trajectory without succumbing to self-congratulation.

A decade after its debut, the GFN could credibly claim a singular place in shaping the global debate over tobacco harm reduction. Over those years, it had helped draw researchers and advocates closer to one another, as well as regulators and consumers, voices from the Global South, and academic circuits still caught in the North’s gravitational field.

Above all, it had preserved a space for substantive disagreement, something that, in an age of performed polarization, had become not just rare but structurally at risk.

The anniversary, though, hardly warranted any naïve celebration. On one hand, the global use of vapes, snus, heated-tobacco products, and nicotine pouches continued to grow, as tens of millions of people sought out less risky alternatives. On the other hand, a persistent fog of regulatory and political confusion remained capable of blunting part of that movement.

The tenth edition unfolded in the shadow of a harder question: what happens when public uptake outpaces institutional imagination? The approach of the Framework Convention’s COP10, held later that same year in Panama, brought that tension into sharper relief.

In response, the GFN sought to broaden not only the debate itself, but also access to it. Alongside free streaming, live and on demand, came simultaneous interpretation into other languages, initially Spanish and Russian, and a more deliberate effort to open the space to people who had long orbited the debate without ever quite entering it.

The Michael Russell Oration, delivered by Professor Roberto Sussman and devoted to a rigorous critical assessment of the science around tobacco and nicotine, neatly captured the spirit of that moment: ten years on, the question was no longer simply how to produce more evidence, but who gets to interpret it, within what frame, and in service of what kind of future.

By 2023, the GFN was showing that it was no longer peripheral. It had become a force in the debate.

In 2024, under the banner Economics, Health and Tobacco Harm Reduction, the Forum pushed to the center a dimension that had long shaped the debate but had seldom been acknowledged as its organizing core: economics.

It was no longer enough to argue over evidence, relative risk, or regulatory design. The harder question was what it costs—in lives, money, and historical time—to regulate badly, or to prohibit, alternatives less dangerous than the combustible cigarette.

At that point, harm reduction had ceased to be merely a public-health or moral controversy. It was also revealing itself as a dispute over prices, access, taxation, incentives, and technological innovation. To talk about health without talking about political economy was to remain on the surface of the problem.

That year’s program made the point hard to ignore. What are the effects of overly restrictive regulation? Is it possible to quantify the health-care savings associated with the availability of safer products? Does the decline in tobacco-tax revenue, or the state’s dependence on that revenue, shape the regulation of alternatives? And to what extent do badly calibrated rules drive independent manufacturers out of the market and discourage the shift away from combustion?

The presence of figures such as Professor Andrzej Fal and the analyst Vivien Azer gave substance to that widening of perspective. The introduction of #ScienceLab, meanwhile, reinforced the effort to bring emerging research closer to public debate.

And the Michael Russell Oration, delivered by Cliff Douglas and centered on global action to end smoking, helped distill the impasse of that moment: the future of the combustible cigarette would no longer be decided only in the laboratory or the regulator’s office, but also on a less visible, and often less openly acknowledged terrain: that of markets and their asymmetries.

By 2025, the banner Challenging Perceptions: Effective Communication for Tobacco Harm Reduction read like a diagnosis of the times. The dispute was no longer unfolding only on the level of evidence, but in the realm of its public circulation, in whether it reaches people, or fails to reach them at a moment when journalistic rigor was losing its central place and social media, platforms, and the attention economy were beginning to shape collective perception through simplification, moral panic, and low-resolution truths.

Challenging perceptions had become the central task. Not because the science offered easy answers, but because the public sphere seemed less and less willing to tolerate nuance, context, and contradiction.

The paradox could no longer be dismissed as noise: as the scientific case for harm reduction grew more substantial, its public reception, in many places, was becoming murkier. Lower-risk nicotine products continued to erode the cigarette’s centrality. But that movement was advancing in an atmosphere of caricature, suspicion, and simplification that could delay, if not altogether block, the translation into policy.

That was the point at which communication ceased to be merely an adjunct to science. It became part of the conflict itself. It was no longer enough to produce evidence; it was necessary to contest the frame, correct enduring distortions, and ask who was still being left out of the conversation.

In an environment where discourse itself is an instrument of power, perception functions as a regulatory field, and institutional caution can serve as an alibi for inertia, the problem came to lie less in the absence of data than in the difficulty of making those data legible before they were immediately absorbed by the machinery of moral panic.

The choice of Fiona Patten for the Michael Russell Award distilled the spirit of that year with unusual clarity. An Australian politician, consumer, and longtime advocate of harm reduction, she brought together in a single figure lived experience, regulatory conflict, and the public struggle over language. By 2025, the GFN showed that the battle was no longer fought only over what science knows, but over what a society allows itself to hear.

That may be why the GFN provokes such strong reactions: the Forum inhabits a particularly uncomfortable corner of contemporary debate, where scientific evidence, lived experience, industrial interest, regulatory calculation, and moral judgment intersect without ever settling into ease.

Its critics surround it with suspicion; its defenders treat it as an indispensable space. In opposing registers, both recognize the same fact: the GFN is not peripheral. It carries weight in the debate.

It carries weight because smoking remains among the leading preventable causes of death in the world. It carries weight because millions of people continue to smoke not in the abstractions of the laboratory, but in lives marked by inequality, habit, pleasure, dependence, misinformation, and precarious access to alternatives. It carries weight because policies that fail to recognize relative risk can end up protecting the combustible cigarette in the name of regulatory purity. And above all, it carries weight because when public health loses its sense of nuance, it begins to drift away from the very people it most needs to reach.

With 2026 now underway, the trajectory of the GFN reads less like the history of a conference than like the portrait of a larger dispute. Since 2014, the Forum has returned, year after year, to a question that global policy still has not managed to resolve: what, exactly, is being protected when the deadliest product remains available while significantly less harmful alternatives are treated as a threat?

That is the question the thirteenth edition, under the banner Prohibition and Public Health, places once again at the center. Not as a doctrinal abstraction, but as a material, regulatory, and moral problem. If the combustible cigarette remains legal and widely accessible, why do successive waves of prohibition fall on lower-risk products across much of the world?

By insisting on that paradox, the GFN shifts the debate from the object to the logic that organizes it: examining how policies formulated in the name of protection can end up preserving, and even encouraging, exactly the harm they claim to want to reduce.

That might be the Forum’s strength: offering a space where facts can be examined with complexity before being overtaken by rhetoric. The question isn’t whether every alternative should be celebrated, but whether current policies, discourses, and mentalities accurately differentiate among products, use contexts, and actual risks. At that point, the GFN helps move the debate from the doctrinal to the public sphere.

* Photos: GFN/Gerry Stimson

Hospitals manufacture this kind of physicality in a choreography of pauses. Time there isn’t measured by hands on a clock but by textures: the crease in plastic that leaves its imprint, the paper that rasps at your fingertips, the damp fabric that sticks to your forearm. And the disposable cup, still faintly warm, persistent insisting on occupying its patch of the world.

Lorraine, a fictitious name, like so many that public health invents to protect real privacy, didn’t come to the hospital to quit smoking. She came to accompany someone.

But science doesn’t interrogate only the sick. It interrogates whoever is nearby. The questions arrive down the same corridor as the gurneys: printed on the intake form, tucked into a field on a screen, spoken aloud by the voice that calls the next ticket with the calm of someone who isn’t calling people, but numbers. A borrowed biography will do. A body in waiting will do, too.

There, in the gap between one form and the next, a researcher with a badge on a lanyard asks what may be the simplest—and most political—question of all. The kind that can tilt the plot of a life.

“Do you smoke?”

The “yes” doesn’t answer. It unlocks. It’s a key that opens a fork in the road.

Lorraine gets a brief conversation, a digital referral to the NHS stop-smoking service, and a vape kit handed over with the mechanical ease of someone merely executing the next step. A DotPro with disposable pods. Calibrated nicotine: measured, dosed, and offered up as a promise to keep withdrawal’s dread in check.

The question driving the British clinical trial CoSTED borders on indecent in its modesty: could a few minutes of intervention, offered at the system’s most improvised point, shift a habit that has resisted for decades?

It isn’t a question for a political pulpit. It’s a question from the margins, from a waiting room, asked in a rush, asked where no one came for this: Asked with an object in your hand and a link on your phone. The method bets on the interval.

Six months later, continuous abstinence was higher in the group that received the kit than in the group that left with nothing but a leaflet.

In public health, small differences aren’t marginal. They multiply. Modest numbers cast the shadow of thousands of bodies. One extra point in a table becomes a shorter queue in the future. Fewer coughs on repeated mornings. Fewer hands reach for a pack by reflex. Statistics have no face, but they operate on faces.

That’s the point of departure. It’s also the tension that ran through the year.

Because 2025 was, over and over, exactly this: the moment when the system, without even touching the body, decided what to ban, what to tolerate, what (and whom) to push to the margins.

While technology was placed in Lorraine’s hand as a pragmatic chance, a device in the palm, a link on the phone, a protocol that doesn’t debate morality, in the offices of ministries and committees, it was treated as a threat. Instead of a shortcut to harm reduction, it became a target to be driven from the market by decree: by restriction, by outright ban, or by bans that didn’t need to say their own name.

Throughout the year, it oscillated between these competing grammars: care versus purity. On one side, the clinical language of the everyday: “referral,” “kit,” “cessation,” “minutes,” “group.” On the other hand, the abstract language of political morality: “risk,” “protection,” “doctrine,” “limit,” “compliance.”

In the corridor, the body asks for a solution.
In the cabinet, the text demands obedience.
And the air-conditioning doesn’t make anyone cough.

That’s when I began to distrust small numbers.

Not because they’re insignificant but because, in public policy, they tend to work as wildly disproportionate levers.

A milligram limit. A percentage in a warning label. A standstill period. A decree that swaps one word for another and, in that minimal gesture, shifts the world.

Tiny things that, from far away, look like prudence. Up close, they’re engineering. Doors closing, slowly, but with a lock.

The old war and the new best enemy

January

The politics of the cigarette remain legal. The attempt to leave it behind is not always.

As 2024 turned into 2025, my work didn’t shift gears. It simply tightened the same tempo. I went through a folder of notes, subdivided by provenance: where it came from; whose hands it passed through; on what date it first made contact with the world.

I kept a spreadsheet of events and sources, rows I fed and re-fed. I checked Clive Bates’s calendar and left a row of tabs open in my browser, arranged like an aircraft cockpit.

WhatsApp for Latin America. Signal for sources who prefer to whisper: brief exchanges, screen pressed close to the body, the trail handled like a hazard. The low volume. Email for the braver ones, for the reliable obsessives, and for the bureaucrats who reply with the entire body of the law pasted into the footer, as if authority lived in the text’s vertical sprawl.

With the first coffee of the year, I opened a new notebook. Two hundred pages, thick paper, plain cover. No ambition to become a cherished object. No desire to be kept.

On the table, the everyday as residue: the ring left by last year’s cup, a pen that dies mid-word, the dry click of a spoon against glass.

Outside, people are in a hurry. 2025 was already moving like someone with an appointment.

I began the month thinking the subject—nicotine, vaping, nicotine pouches, heated tobacco—was still safely confined to a niche. Until I opened a public-health document. In almost all of them, the contradiction was there: calm, official, repeated. The cigarette, the great killer, remained legal. Manageable. Normalized. A habit with a guaranteed place on the shelf and in the language.

At the gate of the neighboring school, teenagers who should already have been on vacation smoked with the naturalness of breathing. Without ceremony.

I watched them from the window.

Meanwhile, the alternatives designed to reduce harm for those who can’t quit were being pushed back into the same moral territory of sin, not by evidence, but by a normalized moral grammar. By framing. By tone.

In my notebook, I wrote a sentence that wasn’t a conclusion. It was a warning:

This year won’t be about science. It will be about control.

The war against cigarettes has a history of real victories. The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) consolidated a global consensus: 183 countries joined as Parties. An accession that became a number in reports and a visible rule on airport doors, in bars, in hospital corridors. There it is stark, in white letters: NO SMOKING.

The treaty is paper. But it’s also a habit.

Its most emblematic instrument, the MPOWER package, became a canonical playbook for good governance: a primer on high taxes, smoke-free environments, advertising restrictions, graphic warnings, and access to treatment.

However, access to treatment remains scarce, concentrated primarily in wealthier countries. In former colonies and in the health systems of the Global South, it becomes a promise or a lost line in a document: rhetorical, irregular, nearly nonexistent. A service that, in practice, has no staff, no stock, no front door.

It was an architecture of control that worked, at least partly, until the ecosystem changed. Every successful policy risks falling in love with its own myth. When the world shifts, it doesn’t move with it; it tries to force it into shape. Instead of rewriting the manual, it tries to bend reality to its doctrine.

Even before 2025, the board no longer reduced the issue to “cigarette versus abstinence.” It was something else: pouches, heated tobacco products, vapes, pharmaceutical nicotine, licit and illicit markets, regional inequalities, and a question systematically ignored by those who prefer slogans to reality: What do we do with people who can’t (or don’t want to) quit right now, but want to stop smoking?

Many governments responded by reverting to a prohibitionist reflex, as if history were a straight line. And not a labyrinth: full of returns, dead ends, choices with no exit.

The Global Dispatches series would capture that movement as it forms into a wave over the year: rules announced as “protection” but operating as the suffocation of alternatives.

The detail matters. Because it’s in the detail that policy hides its own gesture. It doesn’t have to say “banned.” It’s enough to draw an impossible limit.

February

What begins as technical vocabulary ends as a moral veto. And language does more than regulate: it excludes.

February smelled like airports and bus terminals. I spent more time in lines than in chairs while my family finished their vacation. The laptop opened and shut with the intimacy of something that has nearly become a sympathetic organ. Between one gate and the next, I reviewed the same materials: websites, messages, press releases, draft texts, and legislative rumors.

Press releases, drafts, legislative rumors. A source in Brussels, who could just as well have been in Lima or Madrid, one of those people who speak with the cadence of someone afraid of being interrupted, wrote to me on Signal: “Nothing will be that different. Just worse. They’ve discovered a magic word: youth. With it, anything goes.”

I replied with an emoji that meant nothing. It was the sort of answer you send when you’re in a concourse, and you know the conversation is too serious to deserve a trace.

Then I opened TRIS. The way you look at the sky before a turbulent flight.

TRIS: the European system in which governments notify technical proposals that, weeks later, can become reality in twenty-seven countries at once.

TRIS has no voice, but it has a way of showing up. It arrives like a pop-up window that doesn’t ask permission: “A new notification has been published.” The rest is you, alone, reading the future in the language of Article 3, point (b).

*
That month, what struck me most was the drift in vocabulary. Nobody spoke anymore of a risk continuum—combustion versus vapor, smoke versus aerosol—not even obliquely. They spoke of “normalization.”

It was a useful word. It doesn’t demand numbers. It doesn’t demand comparison. It asks only for a moral intuition. And moral intuition is usually much faster than evidence.

I jotted down another sentence that day, almost as if I were preparing an epigraph: When the debate turns moral, evidence becomes a detail.

On March 11, I was in an airport with threadbare carpet and cold light. One power outlet is fought over by three people. A lukewarm coffee. More bitter than helpful.

I opened TRIS almost by reflex. And there it was: Luxembourg was notifying a draft law to impose a limit of 0.048 mg of nicotine per pouch. I read the number twice. Then a third time. 0.048 mg. Forty-eight micrograms. A value that fits inside a sliver of a line, a tiny unit, a decimal point that looks innocent.

To a lay reader, it appears to be a technicality. To anyone who follows the market and the mechanics of regulation, it sounds like a verdict. Is there a product that survives that?

I closed the laptop for a moment, as if that could suspend reality. Then I opened it again and asked someone who understands more than I do:

“Yes. That limit makes pouches practically ineffective. In practice, it’s a ban.”

They explained it right away: ordinary pouches contain between 3 and 20 mg of nicotine. The proposed limit—0.048 mg—constitutes between 0.2% and 1.6% of that value. In a 6 mg pouch, for instance, it would be just 0.8%. In practice, there’s no perceptible stimulus. It’s a ceiling designed to make the product unworkable.

That same day, another move. In the Netherlands, the government mandated retailer registration. The state governed by registry: by lists, by maps of points of sale. It wasn’t a ban. It was the geometry of a siege.

March

Flavors, packaging, gestures. The rhetoric of youth becomes the password for policies that listen to neither the young nor the adults.

March began to behave like a conveyor belt. On March 17, Poland announced its intention to ban disposable vapes and restrict flavors in nicotine pouches. A sentence like that, in politics, functions like the opening of a highway: the government announces the route before a single layer of asphalt has been poured.

On my WhatsApp, a contact in Warsaw summed up the dilemma with surgical accuracy, in a message that was short and dry: “They call it protection. We call it a return to cigarettes.”

That same day, on the other side of the Atlantic, New Jersey introduced a bill with a different logic. The proposal didn’t try to demonize the product; it tried to make the producer accountable for the trash. I liked the dissonance. It was like hearing, in a room full of shouting, someone propose the tone of a conversation.

On March 18, my neighborhood stirred.

Paraguay’s Chamber of Deputies approved a bill packed with restrictions: large graphic warnings, a ban on online sales, and a veto on sensory descriptors like “fruit,” “caramel,” and “chocolate.”

I pictured the text as a door with too many locks. It’s not that you can’t go in. It’s that you try, you tire, you give up, and you head to the street next door, where cigarettes are still for sale. No password. No barrier.

On the 19th, in the United Arab Emirates, standards for pouches were defined: a nicotine limit per unit, mandatory warnings, and composition rules.

The tone was technical, almost bureaucratic. Less “moral panic,” more “industrial manual.” And yet it was still part of the same phenomenon: states rearranging themselves to fit alternatives into a frame not to understand them.

On the 20th, in Thailand, Parliament chose to maintain a total ban, rejecting any path toward legalization. Narratively, it was the month’s most paradoxical scene: a country where conventional cigarettes remain legal, popular, and accessible, while the alternative remains prohibited.

A prohibition sustained not by conviction, but by inertia. And inertia, sometimes, is the most brutal form of decision.

On the 24th, Malaysia decided to postpone the ban on the display of vapes at retail. Postponement tends to be underestimated. But often it’s postponement that reveals the friction between moral ideal and brute reality: logistics, enforcement, commerce. There is still enough resistance in the physical world to slow the normative impulse.

March ended with a clean, unmistakable feeling: this was no longer a sequence of isolated cases. It was as if someone, somewhere, had issued a global command: tighten the siege.

All of it before World No Tobacco Day. Before World Vape Day.

As the siege tightened from the outside, the fight sharpened from within.

Still in March, a study published in JAMA Network Open concluded that vaping doesn’t help people quit smoking. The text suggested that outcomes depended less on social reality and more on methodological choices and interpretation.

This kind of dispute isn’t new. And it isn’t merely academic. In public health, a paper becomes a headline. The headline becomes “evidence” for policy. Policy becomes daily life. What breaks in Excel or Word ends up in the lungs.

The year would deliver an even more dramatic example. A study published in Mexico claimed extreme levels of BTX (benzene, toluene, and xylenes) in disposable vapes. But a methodological autopsy, performed by independent critics, found serious errors: swapped units, invalid comparisons, scales inflated by orders of magnitude. The final recommendation was blunt: retraction.

The pattern is dark. When a dispute has already been moralized, a flimsy study isn’t merely tolerated but is useful.

The rush for “impact” meets the hunger for justification. And public health, which ought to be an antidote to panic, sometimes turns into its own laboratory.

April

The aesthetic of purity. Pharmaceutical, clean, standardized. The new morality of nicotine prefers the laboratory to the street.

April began with a small relief. Bulgaria, at first, rejected the proposal to extend the smoking ban to vapes in outdoor areas. I remember thinking: maybe there was still room for nuance.

But the relief didn’t last long. 2025 was not going to be a kind year to nuance.

In New South Wales, Australia, a new producer-responsibility law for recycling strengthened the environmental argument. That became a recurring subtheme throughout the year. Disposables had turned into convenient symbols: visible, colorful, easy to demonize, and even easier to photograph next to a turtle.

Elsewhere on the map, a new object of power was taking shape: the so-called “positive list” of ingredients allowed in e-liquids. Anything not on it becomes, by definition, prohibited.

This isn’t only regulation. It’s an aesthetic of cleanliness. The state speaks in the name of interests that only it can recognize, and decrees the existence of only what it knows how to name.

In my notebook, I drew the image of a bottle that, little by little, became a laboratory vial. White label, black letters. No excess. Next to it, I wrote a short line, almost a caption: The future they want looks like a pharmacy.

In Hong Kong, a bill to ban the possession and use of vapes in public spaces revealed a different ambition. It wasn’t just about controlling commerce. It was the gesture itself that had to be outlawed.

April was that: less “debate” and more “sanitation.” Less effort to reduce harm, more zeal to reduce visibility.

May

The generational ban is beautiful on paper. But the informal market doesn’t read decrees. The cigarette-free generation and the smuggling generation.

In May, policy developed an itch to write the future as if it were a contract. The idea of a generational ban, prohibiting the sale of tobacco to anyone born after a certain cutoff, gained appeal as a form of clean engineering.

In the Maldives, the measure was ratified for everyone born on or after 2007. There is a kind of mathematical beauty in it: by denying access to future generations, the state promises a new world without confronting the old one. It’s the most comfortable utopia. The bill comes due later.

I was at a cheap hotel desk—walls too white, air-conditioning too cold—working on something that didn’t interest me, and that had nothing to do with harm reduction, when I read the news.

My pen froze midair.

I thought about how the history of tobacco is also the history of parallel markets, inequality, those who evade, and those who get punished. A tobacco-free generation, written into law, can very easily become, in practice, a generation raised on contraband.

That same week, in Iraq, the government reversed an import ban on vapes after admitting the measure was feeding the black market. It was one of the year’s most honest moments.

Not out of virtue, but out of embarrassment, reality imposed itself, as it tends to do when it’s been ignored for too long.

And still in May, Chile’s law—the one my friend Ignacio Leiva worked so hard to build—went into effect. But with a detour: the approach was more “conventional.” Vapes and heated products were bundled under the same umbrella of prohibitions and restrictions applied to tobacco. A clear milestone, with a date stamped on it.

I like clear dates. They make accountability possible. But clarity, sometimes, also hides a mistake: treating different risks as if they were the same.

June

The product disappears. The habit—and the desire—do not.
And in the vacuum that regulation creates, informality blooms.

June brought a cut in the calendar: the United Kingdom implemented a ban on disposable vapes. The scene felt lifted from an Italian neorealist film: a date circled in red, retailers adjusting their stock, official notices wrapped in the familiar language of “protection” and “the environment.”

But in daily life, measures like this acquire a body. They have texture.

The impact spreads in small ruptures: the interrupted gesture, the habit forced to find another form, the product that vanishes from the shelf with no visible explanation.

Over a video call, I visited a small shop on a side street.

The owner—an Arab man, who used to show up always cheerful, full of positivity—held up a box of disposable vapes the way you might display a dead animal.

He said only: “I know this is trash. But do you know what takes its place?”

He wasn’t defending disposables. He was afraid of the vacuum. And into a vacuum, the informal market enters with its usual elegance: no warnings, no standards, no taxes, no oversight.

While the U.K. tightened the noose around disposables (the easiest format to hate), the more ambitious project, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which proposes a generational ban, continued its legislative crawl. Still unfinished. The country of CoSTED seemed to live in two times at once: the time of immediate action and the time of historic promise. And in public health, the symbol often arrives wearing the costume of a result.

July

The veto is written in milligrams. Small limits, gigantic consequences: when technicalities operate as a silent prohibition.

July was the month I stopped calling it a “wave.” I started calling it a system.

It’s the month when flow hardens into structure. You let go of the image of the “wave”—episodic, oscillating, episodic—and accept that what’s running now is a system with its own grammar, whose effects present themselves as technicalities but function as effective bans. It is, perhaps, the most quietly devastating month of the year. So far.

In Denmark, a limit of 9 mg of nicotine per pouch came into force. Limits are almost always presented as forms of protection. And sometimes they are.

But in public health, a limit can also function as an obstacle. It can make the product less useful precisely for the people who need it most: the heavy smoker, the exhausted worker, the person for whom abstinence isn’t an abstraction but an actual tremor.

In Australia, as expected, the pharmaceutical model was consolidating. Tighter rules, restricted flavors, standardized packaging, and the product pushed behind the clinical counter. It’s a political and cultural choice. A way of removing it from everyday life, from pleasure, from identity.

And then, Kyrgyzstan. A country I knew nothing about, unfortunately. A total ban took effect. Total bans have a brutal simplicity. They don’t ask for nuance. Or sophisticated enforcement. Or a risk continuum. They ask for only two things: police and silence.

In the background, the European Union, with its habitual air of civilization, debated taxation, directives, and the possibility of placing reduced-risk products inside the same fiscal universe as tobacco.

Few things shape behavior as powerfully as price. And a few things shape price, like tax. That part of the debate is always the most decisive, and almost always the least sexy.

August

Sanitizing the gesture, not the risk. Smoke and vapor blurred under the same gaze. The politics of scenery, trying to erase addiction from the landscape.

August brought the politics of public space to the fore. The idea of smoke-free areas expanded beyond indoor environments, extending to beaches, parks, and the perimeters around schools.

The logic is clear: protect children, reduce normalization, change habits, and, at the limit, remove from view the aesthetic of smoke. Sanitize the landscape.

And it works—especially in the case of cigarettes.

But 2025 did something curious. It widened the perimeter of restriction and, at the same time, blurred the difference between smoke and vapor, as if every visible gesture necessarily carried the same invisible harm.

A public-health source in my country told me on the phone, tired: “We’re trying to get cigarettes out of the scene.” I understand. I support it, in part. But I also saw something else: when you remove everything from the scene, you may end up dismantling the raft while the current is still carrying people.

In 2025, it became necessary to make explicit, almost didactic, almost embarrassing, that nicotine is not tobacco.

It also became necessary to insist on the obvious thing policy prefers to scramble: consuming nicotine is not the same as consuming the smoke of industrial leaf in combustion. In the hierarchy of risk, smoke occupies a different place than aerosol, for instance.

But politics has a habit of trading gradations for absolutes whenever it finds a word that works. In 2025, the word was “youth.” And, as if that weren’t enough, “children.” The other was “normalization,” repeated until it became evidence by sheer insistence.

Once those words become a password, harm comparison turns into a technical detail. And technical details are the first things to be discarded.

August is the month when the politics of the body becomes the politics of the gaze. It’s no longer only about restricting substances, but about stripping appearances of legitimacy, vetoing gestures, erasing traces from the landscape.

September

Ex-smokers, micro-businesses, solitary attempts. Lives outside the frame of the paper, the official document, and the livestream.

September brought two types of documents. They looked nothing alike. One was public. The other, intimate.

The public one was a letter signed by dozens of experts—an alert against equalizing the taxes and regulatory regimes for cigarettes and vapes. An attempt to keep public policy from sliding into fiscal morality.

The intimate one was the messages I received from ex-smokers. Some had become vape shop owners. Others were occasional defenders—no script, no title. Others were simply people who still use nicotine and try, in their own way, to keep their distance from combustion.

The messages arrived on WhatsApp, without ceremony. And I’m terrible with these technologies. I maintain intact my reflexes of an analog creature. “I’m not an activist. I just don’t smoke anymore.” “If they ban it here, I’ll go back. That’s it.” “It’s what worked for me.” These people never show up at press conferences. They have no lobby. No scientific committee. They have the everyday: stress, work, dependence. Attempt, relapse, attempt.

That same month, New Zealand backed away from a technical requirement: the requirement for removable batteries. They avoided a market collapse. It was a useful reminder: the state may want to draw the world like an architectural blueprint, but the world insists on being a construction site.

And underneath everything, inequality kept running as combustion’s engine.

In the United Kingdom, a statistic turned into a moral map: 28.6 billion cigarettes a year. Consumption is concentrated among the most disadvantaged classes in regions marked by economic scarring. It’s no longer a “mass habit.” It’s a marker of inequality.

That point is decisive if you want to understand the year’s political tragedy.

When governments close off or make it harder to access lower-risk alternatives, the bill isn’t paid by an abstraction, “the user,” “the consumer.” It’s paid by a social profile.

People with lower incomes are more exposed to the physical grind of work and to chronic stress. People with less access to cessation services. People are more vulnerable to informality and the illicit market.

That’s why Lorraine’s scene matters so much.

There, the vape isn’t a gadget.

It’s equity policy, shrink-wrapped as a kit.

October

Compliance as punishment, and administrative sorrow. When harm isn’t a mistake but obedience, policies that do everything except what they’re for.

October was execution.

No more surprise, no scandal, no visible resistance. Just mechanical compliance: policy as a stamp, law as an autonomous device that no longer requires explanation. The conflict’s center of gravity shifts into a particular kind of attrition; the kind produced by normative obedience that detaches itself from the public function it was meant to serve.

In Luxembourg, what in March had sounded like a surreal number acquired the texture of law. TRIS, which at the start of the year was an omen, became a timetable.

They alerted me by email. I opened the notification once more and felt something odd. It wasn’t anger. It was a kind of administrative sorrow, as if I were watching a decision that no longer needed to justify itself. It only needed to be carried out.

And execution has a specific cruelty. It is quiet. Harm appears to be merely a consequence of compliance.

November

Banning what doesn’t yet exist. Laws too broad for reality. The future was regulated as if it were a threat.

November brought Mexico, one of the countries I admire most, and one I’ve loved visiting, and a prohibition drafted to reach even what does not yet exist.

The wording was broad enough to encompass future “vaporization systems.”

That’s revealing. You don’t merely ban an object. You ban the mental category of the object. You ban innovation in advance.

I spoke with a Latin American researcher I talk to often. He sounded tired of repeating the same argument: “You can hate vaping. But banning it doesn’t erase demand. It only changes who supplies it.”

That is what 2025 seemed to forget, in several corners of the world: demand is not a light switch. It’s a current.

In autumn or spring—depending on the hemisphere—the WHO published the sixth edition of its report on tobacco-prevalence trends. It included estimates from 2000 to 2024, projections through 2030, and a global summary of product use among 13- to 15-year-olds, including e-cigarettes.

That snapshot of the world permitted two readings at once. And 2025 lived inside that tension. The good news was clear: prevalence was falling in many regions, and tobacco control, in the classic sense, worked in your minimal part (timidly, like a tide that is about to withdraw).

The conflict zone was also clear: new products are reconfiguring the hierarchy of risk, the very idea of an alternative, and the market of desire itself. The debate stops being only about combustion. It becomes a moral dispute over nicotine.

The distinction between nicotine and smoke—which I found myself repeating all year with an almost pedagogical insistence—turned into a contest of power. Who gets to name risk?

Underneath that contest lies a datum no one can erase.

The WHO describes tobacco as a product capable of killing up to half of its users. It also says it kills “more than 7 million” people a year, including about 1.6 million non-smokers exposed to secondhand smoke. In other informational materials—by the WHO itself and by PAHO/WHO—the magnitude is sometimes rounded to “around 8 million” when estimates are aggregated.

I noted, for later, whether that statistical rounding might be part of the anatomy of the political error born of fear. But the numerical variation doesn’t change what matters. What matters is the scale of the catastrophe.

That is what makes 2025 so brutal.

Cigarettes remain the planet’s leading mechanism of preventable death.

But part of the public—and political—debate preferred to train its efforts on a war of symbols, in which nicotine, reduced to the status of a cursed molecule, was made to occupy the place of the absolute enemy.

Only it isn’t nicotine that kills.

What kills, above all, is combustion.

The rest is the risk hierarchy.

And hard choices.

December

Two closing scenes: between the hospital and the minister’s office, the choice of policy: build the bridge, or barricade the road.

I’m writing at the end of December, carried along by the Christmas atmosphere, close to my children. And an honest retrospective of the year has to begin with a simple acknowledgment: yes, there is a real problem to face.

Youth misuse exists. There are products designed with adolescent appeal. There is marketing disguised as influence. There are disposables that become trash and fashion at the same time, an aesthetic that seduces as it pollutes.

But 2025 revealed something more structurally unsettling. Governments proved themselves perfectly capable of instrumentalizing the idea of “protecting youth” as a rhetorical scarecrow, a mobilizing ghost used to justify policies that, in practice, punish adults and teenagers and the elderly alike.

They push part of consumption into informal circuits, where there is no standard, no control, no exit door. And more than that: youth, invoked as an argument, is rarely seen—or heard—as a subject. It serves more as a moral shield and sword than as the real addressee of decisions.

That is the machinery of elegant prohibitionism.

You don’t need to say “banned.”
You just need to draw an impossible limit.

You don’t need to arrest anyone.
You just need to make it unworkable.

You don’t need to debate.
You just need to parameterize.

And you don’t need to admit you chose smoke.
You just need to say you chose caution.

On the other side, 2025 also exposed the risk of pro-vape tribalism. When every criticism is dismissed as moralism, and every regulator becomes a caricature or an enemy, you lose the chance to build what actually saves lives: intelligent regulation, capable of balancing protection and access, risk and pragmatism.

In 2025, after moving through the slick carpet of COP11—the Conference of the Parties—through the solemnity of speeches, the laminated badges, the white hum of promises and their closed doors, I ended up back in the hospital corridor. The one where Lorraine waited, not knowing whether she was waiting for someone or for something.

I went back to the street with no noble name, to the grimy floor, to the coffee that no longer warms. Because that’s where policy stops being an abstraction. Not in the plenary hall. Not in the paper. Not in the lives, the podcasts, the shorts with animated charts.

Decisions gain density in a theater without an audience. That’s where they take shape. Acquire weight. Because that’s where a regulatory choice stops being language and becomes matter. And matter has a smell. It has a body. It has consequences.

December is a closing. But it isn’t an epilogue.

Happy New Year, Hierarchy of Virtue, Economy of Silence

There are two possible final scenes for this year. In the first, public health returns to the hospital—not as a symbol, but as a practice. It offers tools, measures outcomes, learns from its limitations, and adjusts course. The vape is neither celebrated nor demonized. It is treated for what it is: a bridge.

Every bridge is a delicate and impure artifice. It does more than connect shores; it inaugurates displacements. It exists to cross what is still an abyss, to allow passage over the unresolved, over what still burns, hesitates, or remains. To cross a bridge is always an act of passage: from the place one knows to the one suspected or see advance; from who we were to who we might become. Some bridges propel us forward, others lead us back, but never to the same point.

In the second, public health stays in the office. It legislates as if the world were a well-laid-out manual. It turns nicotine into sin, the smoker into a deviation, harm reduction into an embarrassed concession. It protects what it calls youth with solemn words, while quietly delivering the people who need it to the continuity of combustion.

As if caution were neutrality. As if refusing a bridge were merely waiting, and not letting someone fall.

December is always the month of closing accounts. And, in my case, in my corner of the world, in the Southern Hemisphere, of trying to steal a few days at the beach until February. But in 2025, it ended with a kind of coherence that frightens.

Measures approved with future effective dates. Definitions broadened until they swallow the exceptions. Restrictions that looked small until they became the standard.

It was a year-end in which the machinery was already turning on its own: less debate, more automatism. And more authoritarianism. As if politics had found its formula, and all that remained was to replicate it.

On the second-to-last night of the year, I sat with my notebook—the one from early January—now crumpled, its corners worn down, its cover stained from use- and I reread sentences written without ambition, without knowing they would end up as a summary.

“This year won’t be about science. It will be about control.”
“When the debate turns moral, evidence becomes a detail.”

They weren’t conclusions. They were early warning drafts of a reality that gradually confirmed itself: first as a hypothesis (perhaps even a naïve one), then as a pattern.

I thought about the cigarette—this old, insistent object, moving through centuries with an almost absurd immunity—and about how I lived with it for thirty years. I thought about the brutal contrast that 2025 laid bare.

The product that kills the most remains legal, managed, and available. And the one that could reduce harm is pushed into suspicion, unworkability, crime, and silence. As if the consecrated habit deserved administration, while the attempt at change counted as a threat.

And then I remembered the number. That small number that opens and closes worlds: 0.048 mg. In Norwich’s waiting room, policy fit inside a kit handed over in a few minutes. In Brussels, Warsaw, Luxembourg, and London, it hid inside a parameter, a list, a technical limit that looks neutral until it functions as a veto.

Between a clinical question and a unit of measure, 2025 left behind a kind of evidence that is hard to refute; less scientific than narrative:

When policy abandons the hierarchy of risk and adopts the hierarchy of virtue, it does not eliminate harm. It merely displaces it. It merely chooses where it will concentrate. And almost always it concentrates where the voice is lowest.

Essentially, 2025 preserved cigarettes while criminalizing their alternatives.

~ https://www.disobedientmargins.com/s/global-dispatches

Only later did the moment begin to feel more significant. That lunch now seems less like a break in policymaking and more like a portal. Beyond that threshold lies a broader transformation, one that no longer centers on nicotine.

From Austria to Mexico, from Norway to the Philippines, governments under radically different political systems are quietly reshaping nicotine public health. Not to compare risks or expand care for smokers, but to mold behavior, redesign markets, and shrink the space for autonomy, health education, and informed decision-making.

Once the pattern becomes visible, prohibition reveals itself as only one instrument among many. Where bans fail, the state monopolizes. Where markets resist, they are engineered. Where products persist, information is withheld. And where uncertainty reigns, the future itself is legislated.

A deeper question, rarely raised in global media, haunts this transformation: whose interests are being protected, and at what cost?

Which classes and industries stand to gain?

Which forms of consumption remain tolerated, regulated, and profitable, and which are rendered invisible or criminalized?

« The vape is now viewed not as a risk to be managed, but as something to be eliminated.

On the afternoon of December 9, inside Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies, no specific product was under debate. There were no bottles, no devices, no brand names on the table. What was being approved was something more abstract. And far more ambitious. A new revision of the General Health Law would now ban technologies, mechanisms, and systems designed to vaporize or atomize inhalable substances, including those that do not yet exist.

That same week, thousands of kilometers away, the chairman of Tajikistan’s upper house of parliament posted a message on Telegram. In just a few lines, he announced he had issued “specific instructions” for parliamentary committees to prepare a total ban on the use, production, and circulation of electronic cigarettes. There was no bill. No study. No debate. The decision came before the text.

In Europe, the tone was different: more restrained and more technical.

In Spain, the national competition authority urged the government to consider “less restrictive alternatives” before banning disposable vapes. In Norway, a supranational body pointed to an uncomfortable fact: the country bans nicotine vapes, yet 6% of the population reported using them in 2024. If the ban has been in place for years, what exactly is it protecting?

The political regimes differ. So do the institutional languages.

But the movement is eerily similar.

From Vienna to Manila, from Hanoi to Cardiff, governments are redrawing their nicotine and alternative product policies not to reduce risk, but to redefine what may exist, what may be said, and who may choose.

Sometimes, through outright bans. Sometimes through state monopolies. Sometimes, through advertising restrictions. And sometimes, by legislating the future for generations to come.

The immediate object may appear to be the vape. But what’s at stake is something much larger. What is emerging globally is not a coordinated policy against vapor products, nor a uniform response to new scientific evidence. It is something quieter and more serious: the transformation of public health into a technique of governance.

Instead of focusing on comparing risks, identifying uses, and responding to genuine behaviors, many governments have begun using the language of public health to pursue other goals: moralization, market regulation, social discipline, discourse management, and the proactive governance of the future.

Harm reduction, pragmatic and imperfect, is giving way to symbolic solutions: legally expansive, politically comfortable. This is not merely about banning products. It’s about governing (the possibility of) choices.

It is this shift, from measurable risk to acceptable conduct, that connects countries as different as Mexico, Vietnam, Austria, the Philippines, Norway, Spain, Zambia, and Tajikistan.

The vape is merely the thread. What arises is a new repertoire of power, exercised in the name of health, but not always guided by it.

Mexico and Tajikistan

Prohibition as Erasure: The Ban Before the Object

Some prohibitions regulate behavior. Others do something more radical: they deny the object's very existence. It is in this second category that Mexico and Tajikistan, through very different paths, now find themselves.

In Mexico, prohibition arrives cloaked in legal density.

The reform of the General Health Law does not simply ban existing devices or liquids. It forbids technologies, mechanisms, and systems designed to heat, vaporize, or atomize inhalable substances, with or without nicotine, including hypothetical future formulations that do not yet exist.

Gels, salts, waxes, dry aerosols, resin extracts, oily compounds: the list functions less as a technical specification than as an authoritarian political gesture.

The legislator is attempting to shut down the future.

In doing so, the authorities avoid the uncomfortable task of explaining why products with significantly lower levels of toxic exposure than combustible cigarettes should not be regulated, but instead eradicated.

The law does not ask what the relative risk is, for whom, or compared to what. It begins with a prior assumption: that specific categories of technological practice do not even merit the status of a regulatable object.

That is why products with and without tobacco, and with and without combustion, appear side by side, treated as equivalent threats. The problem is not the substance. It’s the gesture. Not the measurable harm, but the possibility of existence.

This logic, ontological before it is sanitary, is rare even in classical prohibitionist policy. Alcohol, illicit drugs, pesticides, and high-risk pharmaceuticals are all regulated based on gradations, exceptions, and limits of use.

In the case of nicotine technologies, differentiation is discarded as a principle. The prohibition is not a response to a concrete problem. It preempts the very possibility of alternative solutions.

In Tajikistan, the same result is achieved through a shorter route.

There is no legal text, no parliamentary debate, no public justification.

There is only a directive.

In a Telegram post, the chairman of the upper house announced he had given “specific instructions” for committees to prepare a ban on the use, production, and circulation of electronic cigarettes.

Before the law comes the decision. Before the decision, nothing. Here, public policy is not born from data, nor from a choice between alternatives. It emerges as an act of authority.

The language is revealing: it does not speak of regulating, limiting, or controlling. But of eliminating from legitimate space. Public health operates as a command language. Not as a field of deliberation.

In both cases, through radically different degrees of institutional sophistication, the effect is the same. The vape is no longer treated as a dangerous object to be governed, but as something that should not exist.

The question of effectiveness, whether prohibition reduces consumption, shifts markets, or changes behavior, becomes irrelevant. The goal is not to manage risk. It is to declare moral boundaries.

When public policy operates in this register, evidence ceases to be central. What matters is the assertion of power. And once the state decides something cannot exist, any subsequent discussion of harm reduction, adult use, or comparison with smoking begins to sound like a technical heresy.

Vietnam

The Ban That Exports ‘Risk’

If in Mexico and Tajikistan the state decides that certain products should not exist, Vietnam offers a more precise, and perhaps more cynical, message. The products may exist. They just shouldn’t circulate among Vietnamese citizens.

Amendments to Vietnam’s Investment Law prohibit the manufacture, import, sale, and domestic use of vapor and heated tobacco products. So far, the script is familiar. What makes the Vietnamese case revealing is what follows: the same law explicitly authorizes production for export, provided that companies register within a specified administrative window.

The contradiction is not accidental. It is the key to interpreting the entire policy.

If the product were intrinsically unacceptable from a public health standpoint, exporting it would be unthinkable. If the concern were harm reduction, domestic regulation would be inevitable.

By permitting export and prohibiting internal use, the state implicitly acknowledges that the issue isn't the risk itself, but rather who assumes it and where.

Public health here does not function as a universal principle. It operates as a territorial instrument. The risk hypothesis used to justify non-regulation does not change when it crosses borders. Nicotine does not become less active abroad. What changes is the political calculus.

Vietnam protects its domestic narrative of health vigilance, avoids internal cultural friction, and simultaneously preserves revenue, industrial jobs, and foreign trade relationships.

This is not incoherence. It is political economy in its purest form.

This choice reveals something essential about the contemporary use of public health discourse: it need not be consistent. It needs to be functional.

By separating internal consumption from external production, the state signals virtue at home and pragmatism abroad. Health becomes a moral shield; trade, the real architecture.

There is also a revealing institutional detail.

Rather than operating primarily through health legislation, the government amends the Investment Law. In doing so, it shifts the debate from individual behavior to production structure. The product is not regulated. Investment is blocked.

It is a particularly effective form of prohibition: it acts before a regulated market can emerge and before domestic actors can gain enough political strength to contest it.

The timeline reinforces this reading.

The requirement for prior registration, coupled with an effective date only in 2026, creates a controlled transition window. This is not a response to a crisis. It is a planned reorganization. Here, time itself becomes political language. The result is undeniable: domestic consumption is undesirable, invisible, forbidden. Export production is tolerable, profitable, and manageable.

And when public policy explicitly accepts that a risk is unacceptable for its own citizens but acceptable for foreigners, the health argument ceases to be an analytical criterion. It becomes convenient rhetoric.

Wales

The Future, Legislated Without Evidence

In Wales, prohibition neither denies the product’s existence nor exports the risk elsewhere. It does something more ambitious and more challenging: it legislates the future.

By approving the UK government’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill, the Welsh Parliament endorsed a legal innovation with no empirical precedent. Anyone born after January 1, 2009, will never be allowed to purchase tobacco products, including heated ones, legally.

It doesn’t matter how old they become. It doesn’t matter the context.

The ban is permanent, based not on behavior but on date of birth. It is the so-called generational ban, a long-term political and legal experiment that cannot be tested, corrected, or evaluated in the present.

The state is wagering today on outcomes that will only become visible decades from now, by which point reversing course would require admitting political failure.

This marks a profound shift in the logic of public health.

Historically, health policies regulate actions: smoking indoors, selling to minors, and advertising harmful products. Here, the unit of regulation is the person, classified by birth cohort.

Two adults with the same habits and risk profile will be treated differently simply because they were born on opposite sides of an arbitrary calendar line.

Beyond being normative, the problem is also methodological. There is no current evidence capable of demonstrating that a permanent generational ban reduces long-term consumption, avoids selective illicit markets, prevents unequal enforcement, or does not push users toward more harmful alternatives.

Public policy abandons observable data and begins to function as a form of regulatory faith.

And the bill goes further.

It grants the Executive broad, open-ended powers to restrict content, design, packaging, and sale of tobacco, nicotine, and vapor products, including devices and substances not yet on the market.

These powers are not accompanied by clear standards of proportionality or by explicit requirements for evidence-based review.

Public health policy shifts, quietly, from Parliament to government, from ongoing debate to administrative decree.

Another revealing element is the treatment of nicotine.

Nicotine pouches are rightly restricted when it comes to sales to minors. But the broader legal framing treats all nicotine as an undifferentiated problem regardless of delivery method or risk profile.

By automatically extending rules for nicotine vapes to non-nicotine ones, the bill makes clear that the real target is not the compound itself.

As we’ve seen throughout this series (Global Dispatches), the global target is not nicotine itself, nor the combustible cigarette, but the symbolic gesture historically associated with tobacco.

Curiously, it is not the most lethal form of nicotine that draws the harshest policy response, but its lower-risk alternatives. The cigarette endures not despite the crackdown, but often because it is familiar, taxable, and symbolically domesticated.

What unsettles regulators is not only the product, but the possibility of pleasure outside sanctioned frameworks. People enjoy nicotine, and that, too, is part of what is being governed.

But the most eloquent silence is elsewhere.

For years, the UK was a global reference for its pragmatic use of vaping as a smoking cessation tool, with explicit support from the public health system. That tradition has simply vanished from the current political framework.

The adult smoker, present, measurable, persistent, has ceased to be a subject of public health policy. He becomes an acceptable externality.

The exclusive focus on the “next generation” functions as a perfect rhetorical shield. Any questioning can be framed as indifference toward children. Moralization of the future replaces management of the present.

What Wales ultimately approves is not just an anti-tobacco policy. It is a model of public health that abandons risk comparison and bets on fixed moral categories. It transfers enduring power to the Executive and its transient agendas, all in the name of an idealized future that does not yet exist and therefore cannot answer back.

Austria

The State That Captures the Market

In Austria, public health manifests less through outright prohibition and more through the reorganization of the market under state control. It is a gesture that is less moralistic, more administrative, and, precisely for that reason, potentially more enduring.

In December, Parliament approved, as part of the 2026 budget law, the extension of the tobacco monopoly to nicotine pouches and e-liquids, while simultaneously launching a public consultation to ban disposables and impose strict technical limits on non-tobacco nicotine products.

These are not isolated moves, but elements of a single strategy.

By embedding the monopoly into budget legislation, a technical, low-visibility domain with no clear mechanisms for public oversight, the state produces a structural effect: Pouches and e-liquids are subject to the same administrative regime as cigarettes and are permitted for sale only through licensed tobacconists or authorized vendors.

Critics in the press have noted that this decision does not stem from new toxicological evidence, but from an older, more effective logic: If something cannot be eliminated, it can be captured. Consumption persists, but channeled through predictable circuits: fiscally traceable and institutionally controllable.

This kind of monopoly is not inherently illegitimate. In other contexts, it has been used to reduce harm and limit private abuse. It can be beneficial if accompanied by broad access, fair pricing, transparency, and fundamental mechanisms for social oversight.

Austria’s problem is not the existence of the monopoly, but its design: It emerges without robust public debate, without explicit health objectives, and without meaningful participatory channels.

In this arrangement, capture ceases to be a deliberate public health tool and becomes a form of opaque state curation.

The state not only regulates who sells, but also decides which products survive, in what formats, and at what cost, replacing market competition not with democratic governance, but with centralized administration: more fiscally predictable than rational from a health perspective.

The second move, the detailed technical regulation, completes the first.

The public consultation proposes a ban on disposables and the creation of a new legal category of “non-tobacco nicotine products,” subject to a specific set of restrictions: Maximum weight per unit, nicotine ceilings per gram, a closed list of flavor descriptors, and bans on ingredients like vitamins, caffeine, and taurine.

This goes beyond protecting against unknown risks. It is the microengineering of consumption. The state begins to define not just what can be sold, but how the body may absorb nicotine, in what amounts, under which sensory stimuli, and with what symbolic limits. Acceptable adult use ceases to be an informed choice and becomes a disciplined behavior.

But the central contradiction, rarely made explicit, is this: These measures primarily affect non-tobacco products, whose risk profiles are substantially lower than that of combustible cigarettes, which remain legal, widely available, and integrated into the same state monopoly.

The most lethal product stays accessible. Less harmful alternatives are captured, possibly restricted, made more expensive, and technically domesticated.

This is not incoherence. It is political coherence.

Cigarettes are known to be stable and predictable in terms of tax revenue. Alternative products are dynamic, technological, and challenging to fit into traditional control models.

The Austrian state appears to choose what it can administer, rather than what makes the most sense from a harm-reduction perspective.

This is where the Austrian model's sophistication lies. There is no war-on-drugs rhetoric, no explicit moral panic. There are precise numbers, elegant legal categories, public consultations, and budgetary instruments.

Public health functions as legitimizing language. Economic control becomes a permanent structure. Consumption is not eliminated. Risk may not be resolved.

What is decided, quietly, is who may sell, how they may sell, and what version of the adult user is deemed tolerable.

Philippines

Governing Speech, Managing Silence

In the Philippines, the state neither bans the product nor monopolizes the market. It does something subtler and potentially more effective: it subjects all to prior approval.

A proposed order from the Department of Trade and Industry requires that manufacturers of vapor products and so-called “novel tobacco products” obtain government authorization for any advertising or promotional activity at least 30 days in advance of its release.

At first glance, this appears to be a procedural adjustment. In practice, it marks a profound inversion of the regulatory paradigm. Until now, the logic was familiar: companies communicate; the state monitors, punishes abuses, corrects excesses.

The new rule reverses the axis. No communication can occur without government approval. All advertising is regarded with suspicion. The burden is no longer “not to deceive," but to convince the government to permit speech.

This is not just about regulating advertising but about establishing a system of prior approval for commercial speech, something that, in liberal democracies, is usually handled with great caution and implemented more subtly.

The requirement of advance submission creates a permanent mechanism of delay, uncertainty, and self-censorship. To inform becomes risky; to communicate, costly; to plan, a gamble. Decision-making power is concentrated in a “specialized office” within the ministry.

The draft, however, does not specify objective approval criteria, scientific standards, response timeframes, or appeal mechanisms.

This normative vacuum expands administrative discretion and enables decisions based not only on actual risk, but also on political mood, moral pressure, or institutional convenience.

The definition of “novel tobacco products” is deliberately broad: it includes any non-combustible substance, solid or liquid, that contains tobacco-derived nicotine or is used as a cigarette substitute.

This conceptual elasticity allows vastly different risk profiles, emerging technologies, and potentially useful cessation tools to be treated under the same bureaucratic filter.

There is no risk differentiation. No use differentiation. No audience differentiation. As in other countries in this series, the adult consumer disappears from the frame.

There is no mention of the right to information, the difference between persuasive and informative speech, or communication related to harm reduction.

By controlling advertising, the state determines which narratives may circulate, and thereby shapes which choices remain available.

The Filipino paradox is evident. In 2022, the country passed a specific law to regulate vapor products, with and without nicotine, implicitly recognizing that governing the market was preferable to banning it.

The new order does not revoke that logic, but it hollows it out.

Without formally banning anything, it creates an environment where existing in the public sphere depends on prior authorization.

It is a form of prohibition by attrition, a concept developed by Brazilian historian Henrique Carneiro to describe strategies that multiply practical barriers, administrative burdens, and daily frictions to disincentivize conduct without formally prohibiting it.

The product remains legal. But the conversation about it is monitored.

Public health no longer acts solely upon substances. It begins to govern silence.

Norway and Spain

When Some Law Still Resists

Amid the global expansion of prohibitions, monopolies, and discursive controls, some legal systems still generate friction.

Not because they promote harm reduction or reject public health discourse, but because they insist on what that discourse has increasingly avoided: proportionality, evidence, and comparison.

In Norway, this friction appears in almost clinical form.

The EFTA Surveillance Authority, which oversees compliance with European Economic Area rules, reviewed a proposal to maintain the ban on nicotine vapes and extend it to nicotine-free products.

The opinion acknowledges that states have leeway to adopt restrictive measures in the name of public health.

But it makes a devastatingly simple observation: Norway has banned the legal sale of these products for decades, and yet, 6% of the population reported using them in 2024. That amounts to around 150,000 people. The implicit question is unavoidable: If the ban has been in place for years, what exactly is it intended to protect?

In European law, good intentions are not enough. A restriction is only valid if it is necessary, proportionate, and effective in achieving its stated goal. By pointing out that use persists despite the ban, the authority shifts the burden of proof: prohibition is not evidence of protection.

A measure can coexist with the very behavior it seeks to eliminate and may even drive it underground.

The legal threshold becomes even stricter when the government proposes to ban nicotine-free products.

Without classical chemical dependence, the standard health rationale weakens.

The alleged risk becomes indirect, symbolic, or behavioral, the kind of justification that, within European legal frameworks, demands a concrete demonstration of necessity.

Invoking the protection of youth is no longer sufficient.

In Spain, dissent takes a different form. The National Commission on Markets and Competition does not block the government’s proposal to ban disposable vapes, nor does it defend vaping as a public health solution.

It simply recommends that the government assess whether “less restrictive alternatives” exist to a total ban.

The expression is bureaucratic, but its implications are profound. It reopens the space that the current debate seeks to close: policy comparison, impact evaluation, and risk differentiation.

Prohibition ceases to be a legitimate starting point and returns to what it should have always been: a last resort. The state is urged to demonstrate that regulation would be insufficient and that a ban is necessary.

The Commission also notes that many of these issues will soon be addressed at the European level, in the upcoming revision of the Tobacco Products Directive.

Banning now may entail later undoing, regulatory costs, legal uncertainty, and market distortions. European law, with its principles of coherence and proportionality, still imposes limits on prohibitionist enthusiasm.

The Architecture of Control

Seen together, these cases do not form an accidental mosaic. Countries with divergent political histories, legal systems, and regulatory traditions are nonetheless converging toward strikingly similar solutions.

Not because they share scientific evidence (it varies, is contested, or simply ignored), but because they share contemporary anxieties.

Anxiety about technologies that defy classical categories. Anxiety about dynamic markets, difficult to tax, and harder to control. Anxiety about adult behaviors that resist state, sanitary, and moral pedagogy. Anxiety about uncertainty itself: scientific, economic, social, political.

In response, a shift emerges in contemporary public health: It no longer operates as an empirical field for comparing risks, but as a legitimizing language for decisions already made.

The central question shifts: no longer “how to reduce real harm?” but rather, “how to render certain behaviors undesirable, invisible, or administrable?”

Responses vary across the globe, but they follow the same logic: to deny the object's existence, to externalize the risk, to legislate the future, to capture the market, to govern speech, or to displace debate beyond democratic reach.

What binds them is not vaping itself, but the replacement of imperfect, comparative, and revisable regulation with a moral management of risk: politically convenient, economically viable for select sectors, and empirically undemanding.

These countries share no specific ideology, no formal alliance, no treaty of intent. Yet they move in eerie synchrony. What binds them is not doctrine, but disposition: a deep, instinctive recoil from the ambiguity nicotine still represents. Or more precisely, from the controlled transgression it implies, the possibility that not all risk is equal, and that some forms of mitigation are not only possible but preferable.

What unfolds across jurisdictions is not a mosaic of tailored public health strategies but rather the solidification of a global regulatory mood. It is a mood cloaked in the poetry of protection but animated by a politics of refusal: refusal to differentiate, to calibrate, or to imagine transitions rather than closures.

Vaping products, nicotine pouches, and heated tobacco, however imperfect, are not merely regulated; they are neutralized. Advertising becomes a threat. Risk is not assessed; instead, it is criminalized. Science is cited, but rarely applied.

We still call it policy. But what we are witnessing is performance: morality in the costume of method, fear of novelty dressed as public interest. It is, above all, a refusal to think in degrees.

And in that refusal lies the central paradox. Tobacco, combusted, lethal, tax-rich, remains legal and embedded. What faces elimination are its less harmful alternatives. This is not a coordinated conspiracy; it is a convergence of habits: bureaucratic mimicry, symbolic legislation, normative inertia.

Each country chooses its instrument: taxation, litigation, invisibilization, threshold-setting, aesthetic control. But the gesture is shared. Erase what unsettles before it becomes legible.

Nine national cases, each revealing a different aspect of the same trend: the normalization of a public health logic that punishes substitution while accepting the status quo. It is a logic that speaks in the name of protection, but often delivers its opposite: a slow entrenchment of harm under the sign of safety.

And only one counter-movement. A momentary refusal to regulate further.

This is not a ban on tobacco. It is a global rehearsal for banning its alternatives. And there the politics of harm reduction meet their quietest, and perhaps most effective, antagonist: the administrative shrug that turns complexity into prohibition, and calls it care.

Austria

When Monopoly Masquerades as Care

Behind its technical and seemingly neutral language, Austria’s old state tobacco monopoly is being quietly repurposed. What began as a fiscal tool is reemerging as a mechanism of control, and public health is invoked not as an objective but as an alibi.

The Finance Committee of the National Council has approved a bill extending the tobacco monopoly to nicotine pouches and introducing a licensing system for e-liquids used in vaping. Sales would be restricted to tobacconists and a limited number of authorized outlets, and new taxation schemes would be implemented. The proposal now moves to the plenary.

A state-led distribution model is not inherently problematic. When operated with transparency, public oversight, and civic deliberation, it can even align commercial activity with collective health goals. But according to the local press, that is not what is happening here. Rather than modernizing the regulatory framework to address new technologies and risk profiles, Austria is extending an obsolete model as if the new were merely a linear extension of the old.

By subjecting significantly lower-risk products to the same regulatory regime as traditional tobacco, the Austrian government chooses not to differentiate. Treating the new as a mere extension of the old is a deliberate act. Rather than asking what kind of regulation would be proportionate to the specific risks posed by pouches and e-liquids, the state incorporates them into a framework designed for another era, one built for a different threat and a different logic of fiscal extraction.

In doing so, it ignores a crucial opportunity: to use regulation as a tool for harm reduction. The state could have positioned itself as a responsible arbiter, steering consumption toward less harmful practices and abandoning the illusion of “protective prohibition.” Instead, it chooses to preserve the instrument, the monopoly, at the cost of the objective.

The result is a predictable fusion of impulses: on one side, the fiscal logic that seeks to monetize new products; on the other, the paternalistic instinct to control behavior through regulated scarcity.

The monopoly, once a mechanism for revenue and concentration, now becomes a mechanism of containment, narrowing the spaces in which alternative nicotine practices might emerge. Access is funneled through a narrow network of politically connected retailers. And the unspoken message is unmistakable: any deviation from the traditional tobacco model will only be tolerated if it passes through the old gatekeepers.

This is a conservative reflex in the structural sense. Confronted with innovation, the state does not experiment; it recentralizes. It does not recalibrate its rules to fit emerging practices; it forces the new into the mold of the old. In doing so, it forfeits the most subtle and promising function of modern regulation: the ability to signal relative risk, to enable safer substitutions, and to open legitimate pathways away from combustion.

If public health were truly the central aim, risk differentiation and regulatory transparency would be non-negotiable. A state model consistent with that goal would subject products to independent health assessments, tax them according to their relative harm, and publicly justify its licensing and distribution decisions. It would also enable contestation, not as a concession, but as a principle.

But what we see, at least in the press, is the opposite. The current legislative proposal does not construct a public health policy; it reinforces a monopoly. Under the banner of protection, it preserves a fiscal and regulatory structure that serves more to perpetuate itself than to reduce harm. What is ultimately being protected is not just the public body but the architecture of the monopoly: its logic, its channels, its beneficiaries.

At the heart of this maneuver lies an uncomfortable paradox: a state that invokes the language of modernization to impose, in practice, an outdated model. The supposed “update” of the monopoly does not incorporate innovations in alternative nicotine delivery systems, nor does it address the urgency of replacing more harmful practices. It simply captures the new and domesticates it, transforming it into more of the same, provided it bears the authorized seal of power. And it is in that gesture that the masquerade falls apart.

Bulgaria

The Disposable Vape Ban and the Geopolitics of Regulatory Vacuum

At first glance, it appears to be another technical dispute within the European Union. Bulgaria proposes banning disposable vaping devices, whether they contain nicotine or not, and the European Commission and the Italian government respond with carefully worded legal opinions. But beneath the formal language lies a deeper understanding: the silent unraveling of the EU’s regulatory architecture regarding nicotine products.

The Commission’s opinion questions the compatibility of the Bulgarian bill with the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), particularly with respect to health warnings and ingredient transparency. Its central critique targets Bulgaria’s blanket ban on sensory references on packaging, such as flavors and aromas, a measure that may conflict with the TPD’s principles of consumer information and clarity.

Italy, meanwhile, sidesteps the vaping issue and directs its objection elsewhere: the bill’s restrictions on energy drinks. According to Rome, such measures would violate the principle of the free movement of goods within the internal market, underscoring that even in public health disputes, commercial interests remain a core fault line.

What seems like a technical standoff is, in fact, a deeper conflict: the attempt by a peripheral state to impose some order on a fragmented regulatory landscape one shaped, or at least tolerated, by Brussels.

Bulgaria’s proposal goes beyond public health. It responds to the absence of clear EU guidance and to a regulatory vacuum that has enabled the unchecked proliferation of products, formats, and business models operating outside coherent oversight.

By demanding “alignment” with the TPD, the European Commission casts itself as the guardian of a coherence it helped fracture. There lies the paradox: the center demands order, yet refuses to acknowledge that much of the disorder was bred by the silence or complacency of its own directives.

In this regulatory vacuum, member states such as Bulgaria legislate by saturation. Instead of tailoring measures to distinct risk profiles or patterns of use, they adopt maximalist strategies: total bans. Regulation becomes a barricade rather than a tool of mediation.

Yet even if the Bulgarian bill responds to a real institutional gap, its execution risks turning exception into rule: by treating nicotine and non-nicotine products alike, by banning sensory cues that support harm reduction, and by collapsing nuance in the name of regulatory simplicity, it threatens to undermine public health gains made through safer alternatives.

The result is a standoff with two faces: on one side, Brussels’ paralysis sketching directives while avoiding substantive commitments; on the other, a member state trying to fill the void with extreme measures, but without the technical deliberation such decisions demand.

The double risk is evident: that the EU will miss the opportunity to build a more effective common framework, and that its members, acting alone, may replace regulatory chaos with blind rigidity, equally distant from science, bioethics, and informed citizenship.

Canada

When the State Files a Lawsuit Against the Alternative

In British Columbia, long praised as a progressive beacon, public health policy against vaping has taken a new, symbolic turn: the state now goes to court not merely to regulate but to punish what should be an alternative.

In December 2025, the province passed the Vaping Product Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act (Bill 24). This legal framework allows the government to sue manufacturers, distributors, consultants, and even corporate directors and officers to recover public health care costs allegedly caused by vaping-related illness.

The law looks not to the future but to the past.

Its provisions are retroactive, enabling lawsuits for “vaping-related wrongs” regardless of when they occurred, provided the claim is filed within 15 years of the Act’s enforcement or the discovery of harm. Even more troubling: courts may rely on ministerial certificates as conclusive evidence of healthcare costs, allowing judgments to rest on projections and aggregated data rather than individual evidence.

But damage is only half the story.

The scope of liability has been radically redrawn. Responsibility now extends beyond companies to individual executives, even for alleged wrongdoing predating the law itself. The presumption of innocence is subverted by a retroactive framework that undermines fundamental legal protections.

The government frames the bill as a tool to reclaim public costs from e-cigarette use, echoing the lawsuits of the 1990s against Big Tobacco. However, this analogy is forced, even grotesque. What was once a legal strategy against the deadliest consumer product in modern history is now indiscriminately applied to a landscape of lower-risk products and evolving consumer practices.

The consequences are stark: products with distinct harm profiles are collapsed into a single legal category. Non-combustible devices are judged as though they were cigarettes. The principle of harm proportionality, essential to any ethical public health model, is replaced with a punitive logic that flattens all distinctions.

The paradox is glaring. Cigarettes, mass killers for over a century, remain legal, widely sold, and fiscally sound. Meanwhile, producers of safer alternatives face retroactive lawsuits and personal liability. The message to the market is clear and perverse: stay with the known killer, and you’re safe; try innovating, and you’re a target.

A state truly committed to public health would design law and liability to reflect risk and support substitution. British Columbia chooses another path: it repurposes the apparatus of punishment, cloaks it in the language of health, and asserts its right to define which risks are legitimate and which are threats.

In this system, it is not the high risk that elicits the fiercest response, but the effort to leave it behind through means beyond the state’s control. That is the quiet inversion at work: public health rhetoric is weaponized, not to reduce harm, but to discipline attempts to reconfigure it. Here, the message and boundary between protection and repression becomes uncomfortably thin.

Ecuador

When Regulation Becomes an Act of Moral Faith

Ecuador stands at a legislative crossroads. Under the banner of updating its tobacco control policies, the country is advancing a proposal that appears to be driven more by moral conviction than by scientific evidence.

Congresswoman Cristina Jácome, representing the province of Guayas, has introduced a bill to reform forty articles of the 2011 Organic Law for the Regulation and Control of Tobacco. Yet rather than modernizing through nuance, the draft reinforces a familiar logic: homogeneous control over profoundly heterogeneous risks.

The diagnosis is valid. The industry has changed: electronic devices have proliferated, digital marketing circumvents traditional regulations, and consumer patterns have diversified. But Jácome’s legislative response is strikingly monolithic.

According to the Assembly’s official summary, the bill bans advertising and sponsorship of all tobacco and nicotine products, imposes transparency obligations on the industry, regulates points of sale, strengthens enforcement mechanisms, establishes sanctions, and enables citizen reporting, without distinguishing between combustible and non-combustible products.

On paper, products with vastly different harm profiles: cigarettes, vapes, heated tobacco, and nicotine-free devices are folded into a single regulatory framework.

Vapor and smoke, exposure and combustion, direct and residual risk: all are treated alike. The result is not just a technical misstep but an epistemological one: regulation ceases to mediate risk and begins to encode moral certainty.

This erases a central tenet of evidence-based public health: proportionality to harm.

Scientific consensus confirms that combustion is the primary driver of nicotine-related illness and death. Non-combustible products, while not risk-free, typically result in significantly lower toxicant exposure and can support complete switching away from cigarettes. Harm-reduction-oriented regulatory models recognize this and design regimes that, while protecting youth, create space for safer transitions.

The Ecuadorian bill goes in the opposite direction. Rather than calibrating measures by product type and risk level, it imposes blanket restrictions: the same tools, the same rhetoric, the same legal treatment.

In updating its control architecture, legal definitions, fiscal duties, education, advertising, customs, and sanctions, the proposal also homogenizes these areas. And in doing so, it forfeits the most effective policy lever for reducing tobacco-related disease: informational and regulatory incentives to move away from combustion.

What remains is a traditional control paradigm. More akin to secular catechism than to technical design. In its effort to protect health, the law risks enshrining the most dangerous form of consumption by refusing to acknowledge risk differentials. The problem isn’t regulation itself, but applying a uniform standard to wildly different realities.

Ultimately, the proposal reflects a legitimate concern but responds with a punitive, rather than pedagogical, gesture. Instead of educating through nuance, it regulates through equivalence. Instead of enabling transition, it constrains it.

In doing so, it replaces science with moralism, treating nicotine not as a substance to be managed, but as a heresy to be suppressed, even when the altar is public health.

France

The Senate and the Shape of Caution

In France, the Senate has chosen not to rush forward. At a time when nicotine product regulation is leaning toward greater restriction, the upper house of Parliament intervened to pause, at least temporarily, a set of measures that would have tightened control over vaping devices.

During the review of the 2025 Finance Bill, Senators adopted amendments that removed three key provisions from Article 23: banning online sales of vapour products, introducing a dedicated excise tax, and restricting retail to licensed tobacconists. They also rejected proposals to establish a regulatory framework for nicotine pouches, which currently lack specific legal recognition.

On the surface, these appear to be technical budgetary decisions. But substantively, they suspend three significant constraints: closing an entire access channel (online), concentrating distribution into a single, state-licensed network, and imposing a new fiscal layer before a coherent regulatory structure is in place.

Regarding nicotine pouches, the Senate declined to regulate, not in endorsement, but in recognition that a meaningful framework has yet to be built. The choice was to defer rather than overreach.

The Senate’s action reflects institutional caution: a refusal to preemptively layer new restrictions that, depending on their design, could hinder access to alternatives or drive demand underground.

The Senate is not articulating a harm-reduction strategy, at least not explicitly. But by removing provisions that would have simultaneously narrowed access, centralized sales, and introduced excise taxes without a comprehensive framework, the chamber has postponed regulatory choices with real ethical and practical stakes for those trying to leave cigarettes behind.

This is not an institutional rupture, but a temporary brake. Still, the hesitation is telling. It reveals how, within a single legal system, different institutions may diverge on how fast and how far to regulate products that sit at the intersection of risk, autonomy, and transition.

Caution, in this case, is not delay; it is the methodical refusal to act before the ground is ready.

Israel

Regulation by Omission

In Israel, the government has approved the draft 2026 state budget. A document that, despite its fiscal title, profoundly influences daily life. Among the reported provisions are: an expanded definition of “smoked product” to include any personal-use nicotine item (even those without combustion); new excise taxes on vaping devices and refills; strict volume caps on e-liquid bottles; and sweeping licensing and reporting obligations across the supply chain.

But what stands out is not what’s written, but what isn’t. The full budget text remains unpublished. And that omission is not a bureaucratic accident; it is a technique of rule.

This is governance by concealment: when behavioral controls are embedded in spreadsheets, what materializes is regulation by stealth. What is framed as a revenue measure operates, in fact, as a disciplinary tool. The state taxes, restricts, and redefines without ever naming the prohibition.

In Israel’s case, public health policy is not declared; it is embedded. By clothing control in the neutral language of budgeting, regulation gains the power of invisibility. What ought to be subject to civic scrutiny becomes a footnote in an Excel file.

According to the proposal, a 1-shekel tax per milliliter of vape liquid will be imposed, along with a 30-shekel charge per device, whether filled or empty. Every actor in the chain, from importers to retailers, must register with the tax authority, operate only within the licensed network, and submit monthly digital reports. The legal category of “smoked product” is broadened to include any product containing nicotine, even if it involves no combustion or tobacco.

The rationale is familiar: fight the black market, protect youth. But by burying these decisions in an unpublished fiscal document, the government submerges political action at the moment it most demands visibility.

This is the architecture of silence. Regulation no longer speaks, it murmurs, encoded in fiscal language. And when silence becomes the dominant grammar of public health, citizens are left guessing what risks are being managed and what choices remain available.

The paradox is stark. Combustible cigarettes, historically the deadliest nicotine product, remain legal, taxable, and embedded in the fiscal apparatus. Meanwhile, less harmful alternatives are covertly reclassified and subject to financial penalties. A tax is never just a cost; it is also a message about legitimacy.

What’s at stake is not just the content of the law, but its form, and the manner in which it reaches the public.

When behavioral regulation is folded into budget frameworks and withheld from public scrutiny, democracy loses its transparency, even in the Netanyahu government. The invisible begins to shape the visible, and silence becomes policy.

Luxembourg

The Limit That Bans Without Saying No

In Luxembourg, a legal threshold has been set so low that it functions not as a limit, but as an erasure.

A new law, passed by the Chamber of Deputies in late October and published in the official gazette on December 1st, stipulates that nicotine pouches and so-called “new nicotine products” must not exceed 0.048 milligrams of nicotine per unit. On paper, it is a technical adjustment. In practice, it is a prohibition by other means.

The measure enters into force on January 1st, 2026.

Its logic is clean, its language measured, and its effect total. The cap is not regulatory in any functional sense; it is terminal. A vape shop owner, speaking confidentially, stated that no commercially viable product is likely to meet this threshold.

What is being enacted is not moderation but elimination, camouflaged beneath the numeric precision of toxicology.

Beyond this microdosage of permissibility, the law follows a now-familiar choreography: It bans flavors and certain additives; mandates child-resistant packaging and anti-tampering seals; extends advertising restrictions and public-use prohibitions; and applies EU-mandated health warnings to heated tobacco products.

Three months after entry into force, new labelling rules will tighten the net.

None of these measures, taken individually, would be remarkable. Together, under a limit so low it defies product viability, they function as a kind of regulatory centrifuge: a structure built not to regulate a class of products, but to spin it out of existence, without ever having to say the word “ban.”

This is the geometry of silent prohibition.

A politics of disappearance dressed in technical varnish.

The limit becomes the message.

And the message is subtraction: subtraction of nuance, of proportionality, of public deliberation.

There are moments when the law does not regulate risk, but redefines it out of being.

The Luxembourg model is one of them.

By embedding a ban inside the metrics of milligrams, it sidesteps the political cost of saying no while securing the outcome of a full negation.

What might have been a conversation about relative harm, access, and risk stratification is displaced by a single, pristine number, a number that does not govern but excludes.

Pakistan

The Rule That Restricts, and Nothing More

In Pakistan’s Senate, a bill is advancing to impose comprehensive regulation on vaping products in Islamabad, the federal capital.

Introduced by Senator Sarmad Ali of the People’s Party, the proposal includes: a ban on sales to minors; use restrictions in public places and public transport; a nicotine cap of 40 mg/ml; a prohibition on packaging deemed attractive to minors; a total ban on advertising, promotion, and sponsorship; and a rule forbidding sales within 50 meters of educational institutions.

It is a wide-ranging regulatory framework, assembled with the precision of a well-known manual. Every measure reflects a familiar repertoire: prevention, perimeter control, and access limitation. Each clause conforms to the WHO’s (Bloomberg’s) recommended template. Yet while the list is long, the orientation is singular: restriction.

What is missing, evidently, is any trace of risk differentiation, transitional strategy, or consideration of proportionality. The bill does not calibrate measures to actual product profiles or consumption patterns. Instead, it asserts regulation as a normative good in itself. Coherence here is structural and personalized, not empirical, tight, linear, and absolute.

In this respect, Islamabad mirrors a broader trend across many Global South jurisdictions: importing the strictest available model as both a token of international alignment and a form of institutional self-defense against charges of inaction. However, one key question remains: Does it work?

Regulation is necessary, but effective regulation requires more than fidelity to any imported templates. It demands evaluation, revision, and responsiveness to local contexts. It calls for asking not only what must be prohibited, but also what should be enabled. Above all, it requires a commitment to transformation, not just containment. And that element remains absent here, overshadowed by the comfort of the formal rigor of familiar yet flawed perspectives.

Russia

The Gesture That Bans Before It Understands

In Russia, legislative momentum has turned symbolic power into regulatory force. A bill approved by the Government Commission prohibits the sale and use of nicotine-containing products, whether combustible or non-combustible, at public transport stops nationwide. Only one exception remains: vending machines located in isolated communities with no other supply options. The measure is expected to take effect in September 2026, pending final parliamentary approval.

But the story did not stop at kiosks. A multiparty coalition in the State Duma, led by Yaroslav Nilov, chair of the Labor and Social Policy Committee, has proposed an amendment that would go even further: a blanket national ban on the sale of e-cigarettes and vaping liquids, regardless of nicotine content.

This escalating pattern of control reflects a broader institutional reflex: legislate before understanding, forbid before measuring.

In such a climate, the gesture and the performance of resolve matter more than the mechanism. Policy becomes posture.

Here, risk is not something to be assessed or managed. It is something to be erased, removed from public space, not through science, but through symbolic exclusion.

The vape is not understood as a technological object with a particular risk profile, but as an alien form of deviance to be neutralized before its nature becomes too visible, too complex to expel easily.

The instinct is not uniquely Russian; it echoes throughout regulatory systems that respond to novelty with prohibitive reflexes. But in this case, the strategy is particularly stark: eliminate the thing before one must explain it. Preempt nuance. Criminalize ambiguity.

The proposed ban rests on neither epidemiological modeling nor comparative risk analysis. It is driven by an urgency to reassert moral clarity defined not by proportionality but by exclusion. To legislate in this way is not to govern a public health problem; it is to exorcise an unfamiliar presence.

When the law becomes a liturgical ritual, the public policy becomes fiction; what is lost is not only the opportunity for better health outcomes but also the state's capacity to learn from what it regulates.

Switzerland

The Politics of Making Things Disappear

Switzerland’s Federal Council has launched a public consultation to revise the Tobacco Products Ordinance (TabPV) and implement the new national law adopted in mid-2025.

The proposal envisions a near-total advertising ban on tobacco and nicotine products, including e-cigarettes, across all spaces accessible to minors: digital platforms, print media, vending machines, and events.

The revised rules also require technical mechanisms for verifying age, define acceptable forms of identification, and outline conditions under which marketing can be made “invisible and inaccessible.”

These are not exceptional measures by Swiss standards. They follow the familiar pattern of high technical specificity and legal granularity. But within that precision lies a deeper political instinct: to regulate visibility itself.

Advertising is not just a commercial practice. It is also a declaration of social presence. By erasing it, the state does more than protect. It selects. It decides which products, and by extension, which choices, are allowed to appear. What begins as a public health measure becomes a form of symbolic erasure.

This is not a defense of vaping ads. It is a caution against mistaking disappearance for resolution.

When public policy equates risk with visibility and harm with mere image, it leaves the more complex realities of consumption, behavior, and motivation untouched.

What’s being restricted here is not just marketing, but narrative space.

The question is not whether regulation is warranted. It often is. The question is what kind of regulation sustains democratic clarity, rather than obscures it under layers of technical vanishing.

Switzerland’s move illustrates a broader European trend: confronting harm by erasing its image. The risk, ultimately, is not just to health but to political legibility and legitimacy.

The United Kingdom passed its landmark “smoke-free generation” law. France, Ireland, and Czechia imposed stricter rules. Portugal, quietly, moved to tax nicotine pouches. Mexico, Uzbekistan, and South Korea advanced toward outright bans. And Argentina, in a rare, solitary gesture, proposed a regulation.

The map was vast. But the pattern, unsettling: cigarettes endure, harm reduction disappears, and policy, in the name of protecting the future, reenacts the failures of the past.

Brussels

A Ritual of Bread and Smoke

On the table: bread, sparkling water, and a lukewarm plate of food. The scene is a working lunch in Brussels: institutional banality elevated to diplomatic ritual. But what’s really being served are carefully curated, or strategically vague, expressions drawn from the official vocabulary of European public health: “smoke-free generation,” “emerging products,” “protection of minors.”

On the agenda of the EU’s Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (EPSCO), one item stands out, not for being controversial, but for its apparent consensus: “New tobacco and nicotine products: impact on children and youth.”

No minister wants to appear complacent in the face of the vape boom. Nor do they wish to be associated with a narrative strongly promoted by regional WHO offices and aligned NGOs that frames the continent as besieged by electronic devices and nicotine pouches, supposedly engineered to seduce children.

But what remains outside the frame also speaks volumes.

During lunch, ministers engaged in an “informal debate” on the topic. In the language of diplomacy, this often means: nothing will be decided, but positions will be floated. And even when the discourse claims the mantle of public health protection, the silences are telling. In the newly announced Critical Medicines Act, one of the EU’s flagship initiatives to ensure access to essential medicines, there’s no mention of nicotine or technologies tied to harm reduction. The substance isn’t considered “critical”, even though in much of Europe, access to cessation alternatives remains far from assured.

Nicotine, when uncoupled from the cigarette, lingers in a grey zone: pharmacologically peripheral, politically inconvenient. Invisible when that suits, visible only as a moral threat.

United Kingdom

A Generation Without Smoke; or Alternatives

The moral laboratory for generational prohibition lies not within the European Union, but right next to it, and in a way, on its fringes: the United Kingdom. The new Tobacco and Vapes Bill proposes one of the most radical iterations of this logic by permanently banning the sale of any tobacco product, including heated ones, to anyone born on or after January 1, 2009.

The narrative is simple, almost mythic: a line on the calendar separates those who may legally smoke from those who never will. A clean generational break, hopeful, compelling, and seemingly unassailable.

But the regulatory battlefield is far from settled. Several EU member states, including Slovakia, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Czechia, have triggered the TRIS system, the European Commission’s technical regulation notification mechanism, to challenge the British model’s implementation in Northern Ireland, where the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) still applies under the Windsor Framework.

In submissions to the Commission, European governments voice concerns rarely aired in public. They argue that generational bans may distort the single market, restrict the free movement of goods without proper proportionality testing, and ignore less invasive alternatives such as raising the minimum purchase age to 21 or tightening tax and enforcement measures.

Portugal goes further. It points out that the UK operates in a regulatory grey zone with respect to the TPD and highlights a tangible territorial risk: pushing consumers from Northern Ireland into the Republic of Ireland, thereby reactivating the same illicit market that any sensible public policy ought to contain, not revive.

The contradiction is severe: in the name of “protecting the young,” a policy is institutionalized that keeps cigarettes legal and socially accepted for older generations, while pushing younger ones into parallel channels—informal margins, opaque risks.

Nicotine doesn’t vanish. It simply changes hands, routes, prices, and visibility.

The Small Insert That Might Shift Everything

The same United Kingdom that is rehearsing one of the world’s strictest generational tobacco bans is, paradoxically, also flirting with a radically different logic: harm reduction. Currently underway is a policy that may seem minor but carries transformative potential: the introduction of informational inserts inside cigarette and roll-your-own tobacco packs, offering messages in support of cessation.

The public consultation, open until January 20, 2026, does not ask whether inserts should exist; that decision has already been made. The question now is how: What size should the messages be? Where will they be placed inside the packaging? How often will they rotate? What should they say? When will they take effect? None of these is a mere technicality. In a visual environment already saturated with images of rotting lungs and sickened bodies, the inserts propose a different grammar, not just one of shock, but of accompaniment.

Here, evidence speaks louder than ideology. Systematic reviews like the Cochrane Review on e-cigarettes for smoking cessation support with high certainty that nicotine-containing devices significantly improve quit rates, outperforming both traditional nicotine replacement therapies and nicotine-free e-cigarettes.

The problem is not a lack of data, but the hesitation to embed that data into regulatory design.

If the UK includes concrete alternatives, such as properly regulated vapes and pouches, and not just helpline numbers and bureaucratic slogans, they could become more than warnings. They might emerge as one of the few tools in this new regulatory wave that treats the smoker not as a potential offender, but as a moral subject, capable of choice.

Portugal

A Quiet Tax, a Loud Gesture

As most European countries tighten the regulatory noose, Portugal is experimenting with a subtle yet telling tectonic shift. The national parliament has quietly approved a symbolic measure: creating a specific tax category for nicotine pouches. Starting in 2026, the product will be taxed at €0.065 per gram, with a cap of 12 mg per unit. Though the final version of the Budget Law has yet to be fully published, preliminary drafts and industry sources confirm that the measure is part of the 2026 fiscal package.

Translated from fiscal jargon into political language, the gesture is unambiguous: the state acknowledges that nicotine pouches exist (and will continue to exist) and chooses to bring them out of the grey zone, granting them legal status, regulatory parameters, and a price.

It’s a cautious move, yes. But in the European context, it borders on heresy. If adults will continue to use nicotine, better they do so through smokeless, traceable, taxed products with evident oversight, rather than be pushed into informal markets where opacity of ingredients and regulatory blind spots become public health risks in themselves.

But tax calibration is everything. Too high a levy risks choking a nascent market or driving users back to cheap, combustible cigarettes. Too low, and it may invite abuse, the very scenario the policy seeks to prevent. What Portugal is tentatively exploring is rare: a proportionality experiment via taxation. Something widely endorsed in theory, but rarely attempted in practice.

France

Prohibition, by Other Means

While Portugal experiments with domesticating a slice of the new nicotine market, France is preparing to encircle it. The infamous Article 23 of the 2026 Finance Bill outlines a regulatory architecture of containment. If passed as written, it would impose three pivotal changes on the French vape market:

• A ban on online sales of vapor products;

• The creation of a special excise tax on these devices;

• And restriction of in-person sales to licensed tobacconists (buralistes) and a limited number of authorized retailers, mirroring traditional tobacco rules.

The Senate’s Finance Committee has already recommended approval of the article without amendments: a clear signal of tightening. While the proposed taxation still faces pockets of resistance, the ban on online sales remains resolute. In a country where nearly 30% of vape commerce occurs online, the measure threatens to consolidate the market under the same oligopoly that controls combustible cigarettes.

From a public health perspective, the incongruity is striking: products with lower risk profiles are restricted, while cigarettes remain widely available, their distribution channels, licenses, and profit margins untouched.

It’s a regulatory architecture, oddly adequate, if the goal is to preserve the status quo.

But France’s clampdown is not airtight. Cracks are emerging. A set of proposed amendments seeks to establish a legal framework for oral nicotine products that contain neither tobacco nor combustion: nicotine pouches. The proposal includes:

• A cap of 16.6 mg of nicotine per pouch;

• Sales are prohibited to those under 18;

• A sales monopoly reserved for tobacconists;

• And a progressive tax: €22 per 1,000 grams in 2026, rising to €44 in 2027 and €66 in 2028.

The official justification is cautious, yet it lays bare the underlying tension: “a pure and simple ban risks fueling a parallel market, similar to what already exists with tobacco and narcotics.” The draft law cites cases of nicotine intoxication involving products with over 50 mg of nicotine but concedes that, when properly regulated, pouches may help reduce smoking, as demonstrated by the Swedish experience.

For now, the government has announced a ban on the sale of these products beginning in April 2026. But Parliament may yet reverse or revise that course, laying the groundwork for a regulated model with fiscal oversight, age restrictions, and public health criteria.

The French debate reveals a divided Europe: on one side, the impulse to prohibit; on the other, the effort to regulate. At the heart of this rift lies a still-unresolved strategic choice: whether to treat nicotine as a threat to be eradicated, or as a public health tool to be handled with scientific rigor, not moral reflex.

Ireland

What Disposables Erase

In Ireland, the government has introduced the Public Health (Single-Use Vapes) Bill 2025, aiming to ban the sale of disposable vapes. The official justification hinges on environmental protection and youth prevention.

By banning disposables, Ireland is removing from public view what is most visually and symbolically disruptive: brightly colored devices littering sidewalks and closely associated with youth culture. It’s a policy crafted in response to what is seen as trash, branding, and adolescence. Still, it leaves unresolved the question of what to do with what remains unseen: persistent dependence, the adult smoker seeking a safer off-ramp, and the underground markets poised to reorganize.

The aesthetics of prohibition address the problem's surface, not its structure. And without a transitional plan that ensures accessible, affordable, and less harmful reusable alternatives, the likely outcome is not a reduction in harm, but a shift in its form.

The Irish case also exposes another vulnerability: the lack of coordination between environmental and public health policies. Banning disposables may make ecological sense, but in isolation, it risks becoming just another tile in a fragmented European mosaic of disconnected reactions.

Crossing the threshold toward effective policy requires more than bans. It demands infrastructure, viable alternatives, and the political will to treat nicotine not as taboo, but as a complex problem requiring equally complex solutions.

Czechia

The War on Sweetness

With Decree 429/2025, in effect since December 1st, Czechia has intensified its restrictions on e-cigarettes, substantially amending Law 37/2017. The new regulation, accompanied by a seven-month transition period, redraws the boundaries of what can and cannot be vaporized in the country.

Banned are:

• the use of sugars, sweeteners, or any substance that might “confuse the palate” with sweet notes in products lacking a “characteristic flavor”;

• devices that mimic cosmetics, foods, or toys;

• any additional functions beyond basic vaporization;

• packaging claims suggesting environmental, health, or economic benefits.

The regulation also mandates expanded health warnings: even nicotine-free products must now carry the message, “Using this product is harmful to your health.” Symbolically, the gesture erases distinctions between nicotine and its absence, between combustion and vapor, between reduced risk and absolute risk.

But what, exactly, qualifies as a “characteristic flavor”?

The decree offers a technically precise yet culturally arbitrary definition. Permitted are: coffee, tea, tobacco, mint, or “other plants” including flowers, seeds, leaves, and their extracts, whether alone or in combination. Anything that evokes fruit, dessert, or allegedly “childlike” indulgence is banned.

Under the banner of youth protection, the regulation reenacts a familiar ritual: equalizing all risks through language. In the public messaging, louder than the technical annexes, the subtext is clear: everything is equally harmful even when it isn’t.

Turkey

From Feed to Phantom

In Turkey, the Ministry of Trade is preparing a sweeping revision of regulations governing advertising and unfair commercial practices. The centerpiece: new rules on influencer activity and an explicit ban on the promotion of tobacco products, including electronic ones, across social media and all digital platforms.

But the crackdown isn’t new. Since February 2020, Presidential Decree No. 2149 has been in force, prohibiting the import of e-cigarettes, heated tobacco devices, and any products that mimic the act of smoking, with or without nicotine. The ban is comprehensive: it extends to replacement parts, cartridges, liquid solutions, and any accessories tied to these devices.

In practice, however, consumption hasn’t vanished. It’s migrated beyond the reach of regulation, inspection, and public health policy. Social media has become a shadow storefront; the gray market thrives; nicotine flows without invoices, documentation, or compositional oversight. The border between the prohibited and the available is crossed daily by teenagers, adults, and informal vendors alike.

It’s the classic prohibition paradox: the substance is not eradicated; it is rendered invisible to the tools of the state. By criminalizing the formal channel, consumption is pushed underground, where no one checks IDs, no one answers for side effects, and no one plans for harm reduction.

Mexico

The Ban That Forgot the Smoker

In Mexico, Congress has approved a constitutional reform banning the production, distribution, and commercialization of e-cigarettes in all forms, though not their consumption. The move was quickly followed by a draft law aiming to legally define the banned devices and further restrict their commercial promotion.

Meanwhile, traditional cigarettes, the leading cause of preventable death, remain legal, widely available, and culturally normalized.

The contrast reveals a structural contradiction echoed globally: the deadliest form of nicotine consumption is legally protected, while less harmful alternatives with potential for risk reduction are pushed into illegality.

By elevating the ban to a constitutional principle without ensuring safe access to regulated alternatives or implementing public harm reduction policies, the Mexican state doesn’t just criminalize part of the supply chain; it abdicates regulatory responsibility. Control is ceded to the informal market: untraceable products, no quality checks, no labeling, no age restrictions.

The law enshrines the veto but discards the care. And by engraving prohibition into the Constitution, it converts a public health issue into a matter of policing, leaving the smoker stranded between the legality of what kills most and the illegality of what, properly regulated, might save their life.

Uzbekistan

The Crime of Choosing Less Harm

In Uzbekistan, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has signed a law that fully bans the circulation of e-cigarettes and similar nicotine delivery systems, including their production, import, export, purchase, storage, and transport.

Set to take effect in March 2026, the law begins with administrative sanctions: steep fines for those who manufacture, sell, or transport the banned devices. But it doesn’t stop there. The text also introduces criminal penalties, with prison sentences of up to five years for repeat offenses or activities deemed “large-scale”, opening the door to incarceration for non-violent infractions.

The only escape valve is voluntary self-reporting: a punitive mechanism masquerading as public health policy.

What’s criminalized is the alternative, not the problem. Traditional cigarettes remain legal, accessible, and socially tolerated. What vanishes is any legal space for products that, under proper regulation, could offer lower-risk options.

Rather than addressing nicotine dependence through information, regulation, and alternatives, Uzbekistan has chosen a legal architecture that pushes consumption into the shadows, where there are no health safeguards, no age checks, and no quality control.

It is an absolute ban, but highly selective. It doesn’t eliminate harm. It merely shifts it: to the wrong hands, the hidden networks, and the bodies the state prefers not to see.

Mongolia

Symmetry Without Science

In Mongolia, Parliament is debating a sweeping overhaul of the Tobacco Control Law with a clear objective: to place “new products,” that is, all alternatives to cigarettes, under the exact same regulatory regime as combustible tobacco.

The proposal includes progressively increasing excise taxes through 2030, a ban on flavors, strict display restrictions at points of sale, and tightened rules on smoke- and vapor-free environments.

The logic behind the reform rests on a structural misconception: the assumption that all nicotine-containing products pose equivalent risks. This conflation disregards decades of scientific evidence showing that the dangers of combustion far exceed those of non-combustible nicotine delivery. Treating everything under a uniform regulatory umbrella, without gradation or nuance, is, in practice, a denial of the very foundation of sound public health policy: risk proportionality.

What Mongolia is rehearsing is not merely restriction, but punitive homogenization.

Rather than discouraging smoking by promoting less lethal alternatives, the state is pushing a model that disincentivizes all forms of use indiscriminately, even when the risks are profoundly unequal.

It’s the triumph of regulatory symmetry over health rationality. A policy that, by making everything equal to the cigarette, doesn’t protect more; it merely simplifies the complex to make it administratively manageable.

South Korea

When Nicotine Becomes Tobacco

In South Korea, Parliament has taken a decisive step toward reshaping the legal framework governing nicotine products. A bill passed by the Legislation and Judiciary Committee proposes expanding the legal definition of “tobacco” to include synthetic nicotine. In effect, this move would subject vapes and similar products to the same tax, commercial, and regulatory regime as conventional cigarettes.

The official rationale is pragmatic: to “close regulatory loopholes” and increase tax revenue. But the real-world impact points elsewhere. Once again, the opportunity to calibrate regulation based on actual risk is discarded in favor of a conceptual equivalence that defies scientific logic.

The Korean logic is flawed from the outset.

Sharing an active ingredient doesn’t make two products equal in effect. Arguing that vapes and cigarettes deserve identical legal treatment just because they contain nicotine is like claiming hard seltzers, absinthe, vodka, and industrial kefir should all be regulated the same, disregarding concentration, context, usage patterns, and public health consequences.

By redefining “tobacco” to mean anything containing nicotine, natural or synthetic, South Korea institutionalizes confusion between substance and delivery. The risk lies not in the molecule, but in the route, the dose, the frequency, the device.

By erasing these distinctions, public health policy ceases to protect and begins to punish. No gradation. No focus. Just the comfort of a false symmetry.

Argentina

A Gesture Toward the Real

Across Latin America, the political compass points overwhelmingly toward prohibition. Almost everywhere.

But in Argentina, a surprising deviation: opposition lawmaker Ricardo López Murphy has introduced a bill that takes the opposite route, seeking to regulate the use of electronic cigarettes and nicotine pouches. The text acknowledges not only the existence of these products, despite a ban in place since 2011, but a more fundamental truth: banning is not the same as protecting.

The proposal sets clear limits on concentration (35 mg/ml for vapes and 20 mg per nicotine pouch), restricts flavors deemed “appealing to minors,” mandates health warnings covering 30% of packaging, bans sales to those under 18, and sets advertising rules: allowed only when targeting adults and outside mass media channels.

But the core of the bill isn’t technical, it’s political. In a country where the market already exists, albeit in the shadows, the proposal starts from a pragmatic recognition: the real choice isn’t between permission and prohibition, but between regulation and surrendering the market to others, smugglers, organized crime, paid influencers.

Alongside Portugal’s move to pull nicotine pouches out of fiscal limbo, Argentina’s initiative poses a question many governments still avoid: Is it possible to protect minors without abandoning adult smokers to fate?

The answer, still rare in the region, is beginning to take legislative form. But it demands a prior step: admitting that the real has already happened, and that ignoring it will not make it go away.

A Cartography of Erasure

Put them on the same canvas: the bread and sparkling water in Brussels, the generational smoking ban in the UK, Portugal’s tax on nicotine pouches, France’s Article 23, Ireland’s veto on disposables, the Czech decree on flavors, Mexico’s and Uzbekistan’s outright bans, South Korea’s legal redefinition, Mongolia’s regulatory flattening, and Argentina’s lonely gesture toward sanity.

What emerges isn’t chaos, it’s a pattern. Uncomfortable. Increasingly hard to ignore.

Childhood has become the universal shield. Widely accepted. Rarely questioned. Nearly every measure invokes, as a moral and political justification, the protection of youth. The motive is legitimate. But once elevated to dogma, it shuts the door on any serious debate about how to reduce harm among people who already smoke—millions of them, alive and forgotten.

Regulation is mistaken for expulsion. Restricting the advertising, circulation, and access to lower-risk products doesn’t eliminate consumption—it merely displaces it. To the underground. To encrypted messaging apps. To a gray market where there is no labeling, no age checks, and no minimum quality standards.

The risk gradient is erased. When the law treats cigarettes and vapes as equivalents, it sends a false message: that all nicotine products cause equal harm. Yet the scientific literature is unequivocal: the risk from combustion is exponentially higher. Nicotine without fire is a different story. Denying that isn’t prudent. It’s abandonment.

The easy gesture is favored over the hard system. Politically, it’s more convenient to announce a “smoke-free generation” than to construct nuanced public policies, ones that inform with precision, regulate with rigor, and offer viable alternatives. Eradication rhetoric demands less effort than the architecture of care.

Meanwhile, international documents, like the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, reinforce this prohibitionist reflex. On paper, they appear to be technical guidance. In practice, they reinforce the era’s central regulatory paradox: it’s easier to access what causes harm than what could reduce it. The lethal product remains legal. The alternative is criminalized.

Seen this way, the lunch in Brussels wasn’t just a diplomatic ritual. It was a crossroads.

Ministers can leave in silence or echo the slogans they’ve memorized, preserving a public health policy that keeps cigarettes intact while banishing their alternatives to illegality. Or they can admit that protecting children doesn’t require condemning adults who smoke. That legislating against reality isn’t health policy: it’s superstition. It doesn’t save: it deceives. And no generation will ever be “free” if freedom means only prohibition, with childhood as shield and adulthood as burden.

From a realistic, bioethical standpoint, there are at least six moves that can help nations and health systems confront nicotine without reproducing moral panic. This is not about absolving a molecule, but about reducing harm while preserving autonomy, equity, and truth.

1. Separate nicotine from tobacco, vapor from smoke, combustion from non-combustion.

• In every official communication, the distinction must be explicit. Tell the whole truth: vaporizing or heating tobacco is not without risk, but its harm is a fraction of that caused by smoke. Transparency does not legitimize youth marketing; it empowers informed clinical decisions. Bioethics begins with language: to name precisely is to care honestly.

2. Treat children and adolescents as the highest legal and ethical good — not as scarecrows.

• Regulate advertising and influencer activities, product design, and point-of-sale licensing, and enforce strict age verification. And at the same time, facilitate access for adult smokers, steering their use toward less harmful alternatives.

• The goal is not to spark moral panic, but to organize availability and appeal. The finding that teenagers are nine times more likely than adults to vape should translate into policy, not hysteria.

• Prevention is an act of care, not of fear.

3. Cessation without puritanism.

• Integrate e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches, heated tobacco, and nicotine replacement therapies into treatment lines for highly dependent smokers. The more options, the better.

• Utilize clear, flexible clinical protocols that are based on dialogue, gradual reduction goals, and biomarker monitoring. Each 1% increase in cessation saves thousands of lives and millions in costs.

• Protecting youth does not require punishing adults.

• The ethics of care allows for gradations: not every step forward has to be pure to be good.

4. Tax with technique and conscience.

• Keep taxes high on combustible products, but design fiscal structures that don’t push dependents toward the illegal market. Non-combustible products should always be more accessible.

• Regulate price without ignoring social context.

• Invest the bulk of the revenue in free cessation services, independent scientific research, and clear, evidence-based education.

• A tax without purpose is punishment; a tax with purpose is public health.

5. Measure better.

• Differentiate between experimental, occasional, and daily use among adolescents.

• Assess the intensity and trajectories of cessation among adults.

• Invest in long-term, transparent, open-access research on vaping’s effects — especially cardiovascular and respiratory — without losing sight of the counterfactual: combustion remains the true benchmark of risk

• To measure well is an ethical act: without sound measurement, policy becomes belief.

6. And above all: treat the determinants.

• Policies on income, housing, labor, leisure, and education are also tobacco-control policies.

• Where despair and hopelessness exist, any substance finds a social function.

• Bringing psychological support, pain management, leisure spaces, and harm-reduction practices into the public health network does more for equity than any moral campaign ever will.

• Because systemic exploitation — the engine of inequality — is, in the end, the most persistent drug of all.

• Understanding that harm reduction is not a concession but a form of maturity means recognizing that public health deals with humans, not ideals.

• At its simplest, bioethics is an exercise in proportion: to do good without promising purity, to reduce harm without pretending eradication.

• It is on that human, imperfect, concrete scale that intelligent policies can finally become just.

The WHO’s Challenge in the 21st Century: A Return to Human Concreteness

The WHO’s Global Report fulfills its function — selectively — of taking the pulse of the world. People smoke less today than in 2000, especially in South and Southeast Asia — and, notably, in Sweden. Women have made more progress in quitting; Europe now has the highest prevalence; and new products have transformed the ecosystem of risk, communication, and desire. A global map of partial progress and persistent dilemmas.

Does the communiqué exaggerate? Not necessarily. It simply foregrounds what the organization’s leadership believes deserves priority. By emphasizing youth risk and urging governments to “close gaps,” the WHO plays the safest side of precaution — the rule that keeps the board under the control of those who write it, and those who fund it. As the saying goes, those who pay choose the tune.

The danger lies elsewhere: in implying that there is no legitimate space for harm-reduction strategies. That omission is more than rhetorical — it is political. And every policy, in the end, is also economic.

Ignoring solid evidence — from the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group’s reviews demonstrating e-cig effectiveness, to Sweden’s and Japan’s experiences with pouches and heated tobacco — reduces a complex phenomenon to a moral dispute.

And moralizing risk is the surest way to miss the point of care.

It would also be crucial to place greater emphasis on the social determinants of health: to redistribute income, easing poverty and improving quality of life; to invest in education, deepening our understanding of human complexity; to secure housing, so that a basic need does not consume vital energy; to shorten working hours, recovering leisure, social connection, and family time; and to advance gender policies that relieve the disproportionate burden placed on women.

Because technological shifts alone don’t correct historical asymmetries — they merely rebrand them in the language of progress. And if 80 percent of the world’s tobacco users live in low- and middle-income countries, it is because markets, governments, and living conditions shape epidemics as much as molecules do.

Reducing smoking without reducing misery is like drying ice with statistics.

Ultimately, the report seeks to reaffirm its instruments — the MPOWER package and the Framework Convention — but it does so more to preserve its own bureaucratic ecosystem than to reckon with the impact of its actions on real lives.

In today’s complex landscape, measuring better, regulating better, and caring better are verbs of a new grammar — one that demands investment without profit, intelligence without prejudice, and a living public imagination. And perhaps hardest of all, institutional empathy.

Somewhere between graphs and goals, the WHO appears to have drifted away from its focus on people. It’s understandable: numbers are more docile than lives. But public health begins and ends in somebody’s body — a tired body, a curious body, one that coughs in the morning, works six days a week, and finds comfort in the sweet taste of an imperfect habit.

Somewhere between graphs and goals, the WHO seems to have drifted from the people it serves. It’s understandable: numbers are more docile than lives. Yet public health begins and ends in somebody’s body — a tired body, a curious body, one that coughs in the morning, works six days a week, and finds comfort in the sweet taste of an imperfect habit.

A report is not just statistics; it is biography itself.

And perhaps what the WHO needs, more than new reports, is to relearn how to listen to the coughs behind the numbers.

The problem of tobacco, in 2025, is no longer merely chemical — it is civilizational.

What Does It Mean to “Win” This Epidemic?

It depends on what we mean by victory. If winning means reducing combustion to a rarity and protecting children and adolescents from any harmful exposure, then the path is clear — though long.

It operates through well-designed excise taxes, smart and non-punitive enforcement, objective, non-moralistic, and non-manichean campaigns, accessible cessation services, and modern, equitable regulation for new products.

But if winning means eradicating nicotine from human life altogether, we have mistaken public health for a moral project — and risk failing precisely those most in need of practical care.

In Beauchamp’s understanding of bioethics, the task is to balance conflicting principles; in public policy, it is to manage imperfection. Science has already given us a few fixed points: combustion kills; protecting minors is non-negotiable; and non-combustible nicotine products can help smokers quit. The rest is implementation — with people, in real contexts.

At the end of the press conference in Geneva, the numbers always return to their tables.

Outside, in every city in the world, a smoker decides whether to buy a pack; a father decides whether to scold his son for a colored pod; a doctor decides whether to offer a therapeutic vape to a cardiac patient who has failed with patches and bupropion.

It is there — in that narrow space between policy and biography — that reports become life: when they inform without humiliating, guide without punishing, and care without demonizing.

To win may not mean eliminating vice, dependence, or use, but learning to treat desire with responsibility — and suffering with compassion.

Nicotine is a psychoactive stimulant. It is not synonymous with “tobacco,” nor with “cigarettes.” And certainly not with “cancer.”

What kills, above all, is combustion — inhaling for decades a cocktail of particles, carbon monoxide, nitrosamines, and hydrocarbons that, repeated thousands of times, tears at lungs, vessels, and DNA.

It is the fire and its residue, not the molecule itself, that is the true killer.

Since 2015 — reaffirmed by an independent review commissioned by the British government in 2022 — the technical consensus has been clear: vaporizing nicotine is substantially less harmful than continuing to smoke. It is not harmless, but its risks are orders of magnitude lower than those of combustible smoke.

The most realistic argument, then, is not “total liberation,” but risk hierarchy — and respect for real-life quitting trajectories. If a chronic smoker, after multiple failed attempts, manages to stop burning tobacco by switching to vaping — and gradually lowers the nicotine dose — there is a net health gain.

To deny that path in the name of ideological purity is to push people back toward the most lethal product.

The literature on smoking cessation offers no simple answers — nor does it solve the youth dilemma. Both things can be true at once: protecting young people and caring for dependent adults. A mature public policy must hold both truths, even when they collide.

The WHO, for its part, speaks to 194 countries — navigating disparate regulatory systems, fragile laboratories, and decades of pressure and direct influence, embedded in its own genealogical branches, from multimillion-dollar private entities.

It is no surprise, then, that it adopts a precautionary tone: “close loopholes,” “regulate new products,” “raise taxes,” “ban advertising,” “expand cessation services.” This is the core of the MPOWER framework lexico, translated into the urgency of the twenty-first century.

That tension — between harm reduction for those who already smoke and prevention for those who never have — is both ethical and political. Care is based on four principles: informed autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.

Between a teenager who has never smoked and a 54-year-old man with COPD, the answers should not be the same. Banning marketing that seduces the young makes sense; making access to simple, clearly labeled, and supervised devices easier does too.

Bioethics is not a field of purity. It is a field of hard choices. And tobacco — in all its forms — remains the mirror of those choices.

Who Smokes, Why, and Where

Tobacco consumption, when compared with the use of lower-risk nicotine products, is really a map of inequality. Nearly 80 percent of the world’s 1.3 billion tobacco users live in low- and middle-income countries — where roughly one in seven cigarettes is illicit.

The molecule is the same; the context is not.

Tobacco is global, but unequal; economic, but cultural; individual, yet structural.

As early as 2008, the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health had already stated the essentials: health equity depends on three fronts — improving daily living conditions, confronting the unequal distribution of power, money, and resources, and measuring in order to correct.

Smoking is not merely a personal choice; it is the outcome of environments that structure choices. Look closely at the map of tobacco and the determinants rise from the page.

Precarious labor and chronic stress increase the likelihood of nicotine use as a form of self-care. Low levels of education limit access to reliable information and weaken resistance to marketing.

Housing and urban design shape passive exposure: those who live in crowded spaces breathe other people’s smoke more often.

Regulation and taxation shape both price and access. Excise taxes should reflect relative harm: products that burn tobacco deserve the highest rates, while less harmful alternatives should remain more affordable. When taxes are low or poorly structured, cigarettes get cheaper — and when mass campaigns lack nuance and clinical support, they fail.

According to the WHO, there is robust evidence that high, targeted taxes are the most effective tool for reducing consumption and generating revenue. The World Bank agrees: the policy is progressive in health, even if regressive in income. Once you account for the health gains and the drop in catastrophic household costs, taxation turns from punishment into protection.

But the model, however solid it appears, dissolves in the materiality of real life.

The rising price of legal cigarettes — often driven by the same control policies — pushes part of the population toward the illicit market. Among low-income groups, price weighs as heavily as chemical dependence: the choice becomes economic before it becomes moral.

Taxation, therefore, is no silver bullet — at best, it’s an agreement. It would be enough to track how those revenues are actually used. In countries plagued by endemic smuggling, porous borders, and weak institutions, raising taxes without tackling illegality simply shifts consumption into unregulated markets. The solution demands more than collection: it requires strengthening customs, tracking production, regulating substitutes, and standardizing devices.

In the legal arena, battles are also symbolic.

In 2016, Uruguay defeated Philip Morris in international arbitration — a landmark case that affirmed a nation’s sovereign right to demand plain packaging and larger health warnings. The victory didn’t end litigation, but it changed the board: small countries learned they could win.

The industry, long reliant on power asymmetry, learned the cost of resistance.

Yet the Uruguayan victory revealed something deeper: why are only some industries treated as epidemics?

The tobacco industry has long played the role of the perfect villain — demonized, rightly, for lying, manipulating science, and buying silence in the past; accused, also rightly, of carrying millions of deaths on its back.

But over time, it has become an uncomfortable mirror: how do we distribute morality among the industries that kill?

Tobacco is watched with moral suspicion, while alcohol and ultra-processed foods move through the world under the respectability of culture. Nicotine has become the symbol of vice; sugar, fat, and ethanol — the symbols of pleasure.

A glass of whiskey, a soda, a bag of chips: small daily deaths, sold with music and light.

The moral paradigm tangles in its own absolutism.

By fighting the historical enemy with the same good-versus-evil rhetoric, public policy risks becoming hostage to its own language.

When the tobacco industry tries to migrate toward lower-risk products — not out of altruism, but survival — it is treated as if every transition were a trap. And perhaps some of it is. But refusing to discuss harm reduction on the basis of evidence and regulation only keeps the tobacco economy anchored to its most lethal form.

Demonizing the interlocutor may feel morally satisfying, but it is epidemiologically inefficient. It is possible — and necessary — to demand restitution, taxation, and transparency from corporations without denying the potential of less harmful technologies.

If nicotine is going to exist — and it will — the question is no longer who profits, but how people die.

And yet, the same scrutiny is rarely applied to the conglomerates that produce ultra-processed food or alcohol — industries responsible for comparable volumes of chronic disease and preventable death.

The difference lies not only in the numbers but in history, visibility, and the kind of guilt. The cigarette was turned into an icon of personal sin; sugar and alcohol into emblems of pleasure and social grace.

Of course, there are nuances. Not all tobacco companies act the same, nor do all nicotine products behave alike. The same could be said of the food and alcohol industries, operating in gray zones between freedom, dependence, and aggressive marketing.

The moral contrast endures: the cigarette became a public sin, while the shot of vodka, the candy, and the cookie — pure sugar disguised as comfort — remained private indulgences.

Behind that asymmetry lie power, lobbying, and aesthetics — and the old argument about who gets to define what is addiction and what is culture.

And behind all those numbers and disputes, what remains are the bodies that don’t fit into the graphs. In 2025, the WHO still projects more than seven million deaths a year attributable to tobacco. Most from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and COPD. Another 1.6 million die from passive exposure — other people’s smoke, breathed in as destiny. The IHME/GBD (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation/Global Burden of Disease) confirms the scale of the tragedy.

But the number, so vast, has lost the sound it should have.

The Voice — and the Silence — of a Press Release

As important as the report itself is what lands in journalists’ inboxes. In the rhythm of the mainstream press, few have the time — or the permission — to read a hundred pages of raw data, cross-check sources, or question methods. The news cycle runs on the urgency of the moment.

Within that machinery, the press release becomes both compass and anchor — the source text, short, polished, ready to be reproduced.

The WHO’s version fulfills its role with rigor: it frames the historic decline in smoking, warns about new products, organizes the regional map, reaffirms the MPOWER package and the Framework Convention, and reminds us, too, of the fifty million people still missing from the 2025 target.

But what’s left out is also news — and sometimes more eloquent than what is said.

• First, the difference between use and dependence.

The statement claims that fifteen million adolescents use e-cigarettes. But it does not distinguish between the one who experiments, the one who vapes once a month, or the one who does so every day; between the one who mixes vaping with cigarettes and the one who has replaced smoking entirely. For prudent policymaking, that difference is decisive: frequency is destiny.

• Second, the ambivalence toward harm reduction.

The release rightly recognizes the marketing reinvention of Big Tobacco. But it omits that this market began with small manufacturers and shopkeepers — most of them former smokers — and that the tobacco giants, who arrived later, still face rejection among many vapers.

And above all, it remains silent before the clinical evidence that e-cigarettes can increase quit rates among smokers. To ignore that data does not protect — it impoverishes.

This is not about adopting the corporate narrative; it is about speaking to real adults, in real clinics, where every percentage point of cessation means fewer hospital beds, fewer morgues.

• Third, the absence of inequality.

The press release mentions regions but not anatomies: class, gender, race, employment, housing, and social protection.

By reducing the phenomenon to products and prevalence, it erases the daily lives of those who smoke or use nicotine to make it through the day — the cigarette, the pod, the pouch under the lip as a gesture of relief, not defiance.

• Fourth, the confusion between “nicotine” and “tobacco.”

Throughout the text, the terms blend as if they were synonyms. They are not. From toxicological, legal, and clinical standpoints, they belong to different worlds.

That semantic imprecision creates regulatory noise — and ethical confusion.

Naming well is a form of care.

None of this undermines the WHO’s core warning — quite the opposite. Scientific transparency does not weaken the fight; it makes it more human, more faithful to what truly matters: lives, not numbers.

Voices in Confrontation (and in Dialogue?)

The WHO speaks as the guardian of global health. It identifies trends, population risks, moral hazards, and industry dynamics. It speaks the language of governments: taxation, enforcement, advertising bans, cessation therapies. It asks for resources, political density, and speed of response.

The world, it says, moves too slowly for the death that chases it.

The industry, by contrast, speaks a different language — one of innovation and choice. Of capital and consumption. It promises “less harmful products,” quality protocols, and its own science — and, inconveniently for its critics, it often delivers.

It often navigates regulatory loopholes — not because they protect it, but because they protect interests that reach far beyond it. It operates in the gray zones of digital marketing, exploiting the asymmetry between nations that regulate, those that can afford to do so, and those that merely react — or are forbidden to.

Clinicians live the dilemma in their offices, not in reports. For some, the vape is a door out of smoking; for others, a door into nicotine — and a still uncertain risk in the long run. Their terrain is the case-by-case: the patient, the relapse, the doubt.

How to maximize benefit in a chronic adult and minimize harm to a generation that has yet to choose? Guiding them requires honest information, combined therapy — including pharmacological, behavioral, and substitute products — and continuous follow-up. It is the thinnest line of medical ethics: to care without condescension, to warn without humiliation.

Young people inhabit a different ecosystem: one of curiosity, design, algorithms, and belonging — and the inheritance of a world that keeps smashing their dreams awake.

The vape fits in the palm of their hand and in the collective imagination. What was once rebellion is now aesthetic. And within that aesthetic, curiosity and risk are part of social learning — rehearsing the world, testing its limits. If it weren’t the vape, it would be something else: a different ritual of initiation, the same desire.

Policies deemed effective seem obvious enough: ban advertising, control sales, regulate access, restrict and denormalize use in adolescent settings — without criminalizing either youth or products.

The problem here is less chemical than semiotic, ideological, and political-economic.

And the ex-smokers who switched to vaping stand as living reminders that harm reduction is not cheating the statistics — it is rewriting a clinical story. Every cough that disappears, every flight of stairs climbed again, is an empirical argument. They remind us that demonizing nicotine may be both unscientific and ineffective. The ethics of care require less guilt and more viable paths.

In public discourse, it is not uncommon to see health authorities appear on major media platforms wearing the white coat of care, while in private offices, they keep the suit and tie of profit.

Ultimately, these voices do not cancel each other out; instead, they mirror one another. All speak of power — but also of fear. And what is at stake, between one and another, is not merely a molecule: it is the idea of who deserves to be saved, and who deserves to breathe better.

And perhaps the most unsettling question of all is this: who decides, and from where, that right to breathe.

Before: In Part I — The Smoke We Still Breathe, the WHO’s new report revealed a world smoking less, yet still trapped between science and morality, fear and desire.

Next: After decades of war on tobacco, perhaps the next frontier of public health is not purity, but proportion — learning how to care without condemning.

Part III — What To Do With the Smoke (or With Ourselves)

World Health Organization. (2025). WHO Global Report on Trends in Prevalence of Tobacco Use, 2000–2024 and Projections, 2025–2030 (6th ed.). World Health Organization.

The World Health Organization’s new report shows that the world smokes less than it once did — yet the institution itself remains divided between science and morality.

It seeks to defeat what it calls an epidemic that may need, before a war, a deeper understanding.

On the surface, the numbers seem reassuring: there are fewer smokers than two decades ago.

But beneath the smooth curves of prevalence lies an ethical dilemma — between punishment and care, between prohibition and understanding.

The WHO’s new crusade reveals as much about tobacco and nicotine as it does about ourselves: our inability to accept that pleasure and guilt inhabit the same body.

Tobacco, once a source of pleasure, then of sin, and now of absolute risk, returns to the center of a moral dispute — this time as both umbrella and scarecrow.

The WHO wants to defeat it, but perhaps the real challenge lies elsewhere: to accept the difference between the substance and the product; to learn to save without humiliating, to regulate without punishing, and to recognize the use of nicotine — like coffee, alcohol, or cannabis — as part of the human condition.

The world smokes less — but still breathes smoke. The number of people who use tobacco has fallen from 1.38 billion in 2000 to 1.2 billion in 2024: 997 million men and 206 million women. Most people live in areas where the air is denser and incomes are lower in low- and middle-income countries.

It’s a celebrated decline — 120 million fewer smokers since 2010 — a drop that sounds like victory when pronounced in the auditoriums of Geneva. But behind the graphs, one figure lingers with the stubbornness of smoke that refuses to clear: one in every five adults on the planet still uses some form of tobacco.

That is the number drifting through the pages of the WHO Global Report on Trends in Prevalence of Tobacco Use 2000–2024.

At first glance, the message seems reassuring: the world is making progress. Until the next line takes the breath away, we are still far from the end of the epidemic.

The word “epidemic” plays a role here that is more political than technical.

In the language of public health, smoking does not spread like a virus: there are no sudden outbreaks, no explosive curves of contagion. Tobacco belongs to another category — a chronic, persistent affliction without fever or quarantine, a global routine of dependency and inequality woven deep into the fabric of daily life.

When the WHO speaks of a “tobacco epidemic,” what it is really naming is a tragedy too stable to scandalize, yet too deadly to ignore.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus delivers the official line with the precision of a diplomat defending his institution: progress, he says, is the result of the control policies promoted by the WHO and adopted by many governments; the threat, instead, comes from an industry that “reacts with new nicotine products” and “targets young people aggressively.”

The tone sharpens. The call is urgent: act faster, act harder.

And just after that call to arms, the new battlefield comes into view. For the first time, the WHO measures the global use of electronic cigarettes.

The figure, announced with theatrical gravity, surpasses 100 million people: 86 million adults — mostly in wealthy countries that account for more than two-thirds of the total — and approximately 15 million adolescents between the ages of 13 and 15. Where data exist, the report adds, minors are on average nine times more likely than adults to vape.

The statement leaves no room for doubt: vapes, pouches, and heated-tobacco products “harm health” and are “fueling a new wave of addiction,” warns Etienne Krug, WHO Director for Social Determinants of Health, Promotion, and Prevention.

But what follows is not a verdict.

It is a story — global, unequal, politically charged — about how data and narratives compete to define the meaning of a molecule that has crossed centuries, markets, and moralities. And at the center of it all remain real people — bodies with biographies that rarely fit inside a graph.

What the Numbers Tell — and What They Don’t

The historical series of the report traces two lines moving in opposite directions. The first is encouraging: the world smokes less than it used to. The second is more winding: those gains hide uneven rhythms — between regions, between genders, between individual lives.

In South Asia and Southeast Asia — once the epicenter of global smoking — prevalence among men has nearly halved, from 70% in 2000 to 37% in 2024. That region alone accounts for more than half of the global decline, a feat the WHO itself celebrates as a milestone.

In Africa, the picture is more paradoxical. The continent shows the lowest prevalence of all regions — 9.5% in 2024 — and is on track to meet the 30% reduction target. However, statistical relief is not enough: as the population grows at breakneck speed, the absolute number of smokers continues to rise. Fewer people, proportionally; more people, in total.

Across the Americas, the prevalence has fallen to 14%, representing a 36% relative reduction, although data gaps persist in several countries.

Europe, by contrast, has become the new epicenter, with 24.1% of adults still smoking. And it is women who break the pattern — 17.4% continue to smoke, the highest female rate in the world.

In the Eastern Mediterranean, prevalence hovers around 18% and continues to rise in some countries.

In the Western Pacific, progress is slow, increasing from 25.8% in 2010 to 22.9% by 2024.

Men lead the statistics there with 43.3%, the highest male rate across all regions.

The gender divide speaks volumes.

Women have reduced tobacco use from 11% in 2010 to 6.6% in 2024, reaching the global target five years ahead of schedule in 2020. Their absolute numbers have fallen from 277 million to 206 million.

But men remain the heavy axis of the chart: nearly one billion smokers, more than four out of every five users. Their prevalence dropped from 41.4% to 32.5%, yet they are not expected to meet the target before 2031.

And amid the percentages, a footnote — easy to overlook — quietly changes the entire picture. The estimates are based on 2,034 national surveys covering 97% of the world’s population.

These are the data that feed the monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Global Action Plan for Non-Communicable Diseases, which aim for a 30% relative reduction by 2025.

The world has reached 27%. Fifty million people short of the goal.

And that is where the coldness of numbers begins to crack — when statistical success still fits entirely within human failure.

Three Analytical Warnings

• First: proportion is not person.

Africa offers an uncomfortable lesson. The proportion of smokers is declining, but the absolute number continues to rise.

The math is simple; the drama is not.

When a population grows faster than its smoking rate declines, the result is a country that improves and worsens at the same time.

In public policy, less common does not mean fewer people. And when metrics dehumanize, politics loses the face of the problem.

• Second: the word “addict.”

The WHO statement claims that “one in five adults remains addicted to tobacco.” But the data measure use, not disorder. It’s prevalence, not diagnosis.

The technical definition — the share of the population reporting daily or occasional use — does not imply a clinical nicotine dependence, which is a psychological condition with its own criteria.

Here, the word addiction performs a rhetorical function: it amplifies risk, mobilizes fear. It serves advocacy, but blurs the line between epidemiology, morality, and pop psychology.

In public health — and in responsible journalism — one must learn to tell the difference between a symptom and a sin.

• Third: vaping and the “new wave of addiction.”

The WHO may be right to sound the alarm about youth use. No sensible argument defends early exposure to nicotine. But the science of e-cigarettes is far more nuanced than the panic/risk rhetoric allows us to see.

High-quality systematic reviews — such as those by the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group — indicate, with a high degree of certainty, that nicotine e-cigarettes increase quit rates compared with traditional nicotine-replacement therapies.

The problem is that evidence and policy don’t always breathe in sync.

Uncertainties about long-term effects — especially among youth who never smoked — are real; but so is the fact that millions of adults have stopped burning tobacco and seen their health improve thanks to a less lethal alternative.

Three warnings, then, that speak the same truth in different dialects: without precision in language, there can be no precision in care.

World Health Organization. (2025). WHO Global Report on Trends in Prevalence of Tobacco Use, 2000–2024 and Projections, 2025–2030 (6th ed.). World Health Organization.

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Next: Between risk and relief, global health turns into a moral battlefield — where science, politics, and the human body collide.

In Brussels, open letters rarely alter the course of events.

They accumulate like dormant files in the drawers of power, or at best, are skimmed with a distracted eye before being dispatched with phrases as elegant as they are hollow. The capital of Europe has perfected a singular art: to domesticate dissent, reduce clamor to a whisper, turn conflict into bureaucratic procedure, and discomfort into protocol. Even the most impassioned protest becomes paperwork; there is a bureaucratic language that doesn't kill, but does defuse.

Yet, in early September, a manifesto signed by 83 public health experts cracked, if only for a moment, this choreography of silence. Their warning sent uneasy ripples through Brussels: taxing e-cigarettes, heated tobacco, oral nicotine pouches, and combustible cigarettes with the same rigor is not a step forward in prevention. On the contrary, it risks deterring smokers from switching to less harmful alternatives and enshrining fiscal orthodoxy over public health reasons. Their gesture exposed a machine more attuned to revenue than care, where health becomes a commodity and the citizen—before being a bearer of rights—is reduced to a mere taxpayer.

In plain terms: if the EU raises minimum excise levels and narrows the price gap between products with unequal risk, it effectively nudges smokers to stick with cigarettes or drift into the illicit market. Comparative evidence, from Sweden, the UK, and New Zealand, points in the opposite direction: where less harmful alternatives are accessible and socially legitimized, smoking rates decline significantly.

The backdrop to this dispute is a regulation with a technical name and bureaucratic façade: the Tobacco Tax Directive (TTD). After years of inertia, the European Commission revived it and, in July 2025, unveiled a draft extending taxation to reduced-risk products. Its dual goal: to harmonize the internal market and “reduce the attractiveness” of consumption. It is the most tangible measure within the European Beating Cancer Plan, conceived as a step toward a symbolic horizon: a “tobacco-free generation” by 2040. The promise echoes the utopian hygiene movements of the 19th century, when modernity sought to discipline bodies with rules and prohibitions.

But the experts’ letter sketches a different scene: if the tax floor for non-combustible products is raised too close to that of traditional tobacco, proportionality vanishes, and those trying to quit are penalized. Equating the price of the most lethal product with that of less harmful alternatives is not regulatory neutrality—it is the willful dismissal of evidence. The consequence is predictable: more people trapped in smoke, more avoidable deaths, and a system that translates pain into statistics.

What’s at stake here transcends tax codes. In recent months, official communications from the Commission have emphasized the need to “reduce the attractiveness” of all nicotine products—without distinguishing between the deadly risk of combustion and the diminished risk of smoke-free options. This equivalence, dismissed by experts as a falsehood, signals a troubling drift: from evidence-based policymaking to ideological narrative, from science to a rigid precaution that confuses protection with dogma.

At the heart of an aging, weary Europe, the nicotine debate is no longer confined to the classic tension between individual freedom and collective health. The real issue is the logic guiding public policy. Is the aim to protect health through evidence, even at the cost of embracing nuance and contradiction? Or to preserve interests that, cloaked in the guise of scientific neutrality or political precaution, serve corporate, financial, or ideological agendas?

This question echoes through history. In the 19th century, hygienist states pursued policies that, under the banner of health, disciplined working-class bodies and turned cleanliness into a tool of social control. In the 20th century, Prohibition promised to redeem America from alcohol and ended up feeding organized crime. Decades later, the “war on drugs” followed the same gospel—with devastating results: overflowing prisons, expanding black markets, and ever-deadlier clandestine use. From these failures emerged the harm reduction paradigm: a pragmatic ethic that accepts human frailty and seeks to mitigate it, rather than promising impossible purity.

Today, the TTD, this seemingly mundane directive, has become a stage for a deeper dispute. What’s being decided is how a political community governs desire, risky consumption, and dependence; whether survival will be a matter of control or an act of compassion.

The Architecture of Reform: Why It Matters

The European Commission’s latest proposal reshapes the tax architecture of the Union. It raises minimum thresholds, brings new products into the fold, and subjects even raw tobacco to electronic traceability systems (track & trace) with the stated goal of closing the loopholes that feed the illicit market. The draft asserts that these new fiscal benchmarks will “reduce the attractiveness” of non-combustible substitutes. This is not a nuance but a stance: the institution signals a preference not only to deter smoking but to disincentivize the alternatives as well.

This is a double wager. On one hand, it embeds itself within the narrative of public health; on the other, it seeks to reinforce the internal market by harmonizing a fragmented fiscal mosaic. Politically, the proposal now moves to the Council, where unanimity is non-negotiable, and to the advisory machinery of the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee.

For months, an alliance of governments, among them the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain, has been pressuring Brussels for a swift update that includes vapes and nicotine pouches. Their aim: to curb price distortions that fuel cross-border shopping. In December, sixteen member states signed a letter demanding their inclusion. A proposal frozen since 2022 has regained political momentum, driven less by public health urgency than by the need to harmonize revenues and fortify the single market.

A favorable legal wind adds to this momentum. In June 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union upheld Delegated Directive 2022/2100, which extended cigarette-style restrictions to heated tobacco: banning flavored additives, enforcing stronger warnings, and imposing new labeling requirements. The message was unambiguous: the Commission acted within its powers in revoking exemptions, given a “significant change in the market.” But that ruling concerned labeling and product composition, not taxation. It does not legitimize imposing equal taxes on products with unequal risks—though it does underscore how EU legal frameworks tend to privilege product control and behavioral governance over reducing health disparities.

The rise of disposable vapes illustrates this tension well. Their popularity has less to do with aggressive marketing than with their immediate appeal: low cost, ease of use, and accessibility to both young and adult smokers. In the UK, the percentage of vapers using disposables jumped from 1.2% to 22.2% between January 2021 and April 2022; among 18-year-olds, from 0.4% to a staggering 54%. The phenomenon highlights the speed at which markets evolve, and the inherent difficulty of legislating for a moving target.

The social dimension only sharpens the dilemma. In 2015, a UK study found that child poverty was significantly higher in households with smoking parents: over one million children were living under this double burden, and another 400,000 would fall into poverty if tobacco spending were subtracted from household income. In this context, making less harmful alternatives like vaping more expensive not only perpetuates the combustible tobacco cycle—it also deepens the spiral of illness and hardship already ensnaring the most vulnerable.

The letter from the 83 experts recalls a fundamental truth: not all nicotine products are created equal. Combustible tobacco kills. Smoke-free alternatives significantly reduce risk. Sweden is proof: widespread use of snus and nicotine pouches has driven daily smoking rates below 5%, with a 41% lower cancer incidence compared to the EU average. In the UK, official statistics show smoking prevalence falling from 20.2% in 2011 to 12.9% in 2022, and down again to 11.9% in 2023. The decline was even steeper among 18- to 24-year-olds, dropping from 25.7% to 9.8% in that same period—coinciding with a rise in vaping. In New Zealand, the shift was more dramatic still: smoking fell from 16.4% in 2011 to 6.9% in 2023, as daily vaping rose to 11.1% of the population.

These numbers represent lives extended, illnesses prevented, and less pressure on public health budgets. Taxing lower-risk products not only contradicts this evidence—it hits hardest those with the fewest options to quit. What does it mean for a low-income smoker in Badajoz or Łódź when the EU makes the one tool that might help them quit smoking more expensive? What does it mean for a British worker when affordable disposable vapes vanish while cigarettes remain on every street corner? What is presented as regulatory neutrality becomes, in practice, a form of social inequality, a policy that preserves access to the most lethal product while constraining escape routes toward safer alternatives.

Framed as a technical adjustment, the tax debate reveals its deeper nature: a battleground of ethics and political economy. If the data show pathways to reduce harm and ease poverty linked to tobacco, why persist with policies that flatten risk and punish safer alternatives?

In Brussels, the question lingers in the air: what weighs more—the health of Europeans or the financial, precautionary, or ideological logic concealed beneath the sanitized language of harmonization, that euphemism capable of turning public health into a negotiable variable in the political economy of the single market?

Scarecrows and Realities

Few arguments prove as politically effective as the so-called “gateway theory.” The idea that a teenager who experiments with an e-cigarette will inevitably end up smoking combustible tobacco is repeated like a mantra of fear in political speeches and official statements. Its power stems from an ancestral anxiety that children will inherit the condemnation of their parents, that fragility is destiny passed down through generations.

Evidence, however, complicates this narrative. A longitudinal study in the United States showed that, after adjusting for factors like family environment, other substance use, and predisposition toward rebellious behavior, the association between vaping and teenage smoking dropped to the point of statistical insignificance. In other words, many young people who smoke after vaping would likely have smoked anyway. The so-called gateway effect functions more as a rhetorical scarecrow than as proven causality, a convenient device to justify restrictions when the data depict a far more complex reality. Once again, fear-based policy triumphs over evidence-based policy.

In contrast, tobacco smuggling requires no metaphor. It’s a persistent, measurable reality. Every time taxes spike, the illicit market blooms. Even Commission reports acknowledge that millions of cigarette packs circulate each year outside legal supply chains, with fiscal losses in the billions and consumers exposed to unregulated, potentially harmful products.

According to a 2024 KPMG report for Philip Morris International, approximately 38.9 billion illicit cigarettes were consumed in the EU (9.2% of total consumption), amounting to nearly €14.9 billion in lost tax revenue, the highest level since 2015. France bore the brunt, with 18.7 billion illegal units; followed by the Netherlands, where smuggling reached 17.9% of consumption; and Spain, with 1.4 billion counterfeit cigarettes resulting in €263 million in lost revenue. The problem festers along borders and ports—from Poland to Portugal—and feeds on both criminal networks and the economic disparities between member states. Where the price gap widens, the shadow economy grows.

For vapes and nicotine pouches, the risk of parallel markets is real—though its extent will depend on the strength of traceability systems, customs enforcement, and oversight of online commerce. So far, the problem hasn’t reached the scale of the combustible market, but European experience suggests that when price gaps grow too wide, illegality spreads swiftly. What’s often described as “criminal deviation” is, in reality, a byproduct of tax policy and the socioeconomic asymmetries within the Union.

The incoherence is glaring: while the Commission issues increasingly stern warnings about a hypothetical risk—a teenager transitioning from vaping to smoking—it shows far less resolve in confronting the very real contraband that erodes public health and state revenues alike.

Between the logic of fear, which exaggerates an uncertain danger, and the logic of indifference, which downplays a documented harm, the essential is lost: the concrete lives of people who might leave smoke behind if alternatives weren’t shoved into the territory of suspicion or fiscal luxury.

In Europe’s invisible peripheries, another vulnerable group foots the bill: the poor. For them, each pack of cigarettes means less food on the table, less money for heating, fewer paths forward. And when taxes raise the cost of even the less harmful alternatives, they are trapped between two precarious choices: keep smoking or turn to the illicit market, with all its attendant risks.

Thus, young people become an excuse, and the poor collateral damage. Brussels focuses its energy on a hypothetical threat while responding tepidly to real dynamics that multiply harm and deepen inequality: overconsumption, underemployment, rising living costs, exhausting routines, intergenerational transmission of smoking, and persistent economic fragility.

The question lingers, uncomfortable and unresolved: does European policy truly protect its most vulnerable populations, or merely protect a moral narrative designed to legitimize decisions already made?

That moral narrative, repeated ad nauseam, is anything but innocent. It serves to shore up a tax regime that generates approximately €70 billion annually for EU member states—revenue so essential that, when cigarette sales decline, authorities refer to it as “lost revenue” rather than public health victories. It also protects corporate interests: pharmaceutical companies, whose nicotine patches and gums face stiff competition from vaping, see their business model threatened. And some tobacco firms lobby for a level fiscal playing field that would subject all rivals to the same regulatory burdens.

Much like in the 19th century, when hygienist policies sought to “regenerate” the working class by regulating its habits, today’s controls target youth and the poor—those with the least power to resist. Beneath the rhetoric of protection lies a political economy of addiction and dopamine markets: who pays, who collects, who profits.

The Political Economy of Taxation

On the surface, the official narrative wraps itself in the language of prevention and fiscal harmonization. Beneath this layer of good intentions, however, the redesign of the Tobacco Excise Directive (TED) follows a more prosaic logic: revenue. Tobacco has always been among the most coveted sources of state income. It is no coincidence that cigarettes—now branded as a cursed commodity—rank among the most heavily taxed products in Europe and globally. In most EU countries, prices have soared due to taxation, though the low-cost segment remains marginally accessible. In France, a review of parliamentary debates revealed that 77.2% of arguments opposed new tax hikes, primarily citing their economic and social effects, including the rise of illicit trade. Each new tax is marketed to the public as a public health investment; in national accounts, however, it’s logged as reliable income.

The problem intensifies when this fiscal logic extends to smoke-free products. The demand-side economics are clear: cigarette price elasticity is low—smokers rarely reduce consumption even when prices rise—whereas alternatives like vaping and heated tobacco are far more price-sensitive. If the price of these alternatives approaches that of combustibles, the incentive to switch disappears. Worse still, studies of cross-price elasticity show that when vaping becomes more expensive, many users not only abandon it but actually increase cigarette consumption. In New Zealand, for instance, e-cigarettes acted as partial substitutes for traditional ones, with a cross-price elasticity of 0.16. At current prices, their availability reduced cigarette consumption by 42.8%.

This dynamic is deeply entwined with corporate interests. Big Tobacco has learned to play on both boards: investing in electronic devices to position itself as an innovator in harm reduction, while continuing to derive its largest profits from traditional cigarettes. Every tax hike on vaping paradoxically extends the profitability of the most lethal product and delays smokers' transition to safer alternatives—as well as the market shift these companies profess to support. In this scenario, regulatory ambiguity does not act as a brake but as an accelerant, allowing multinational firms to capture both markets and fortify their dominance.

For small manufacturers of vapes and nicotine pouches, the picture is starkly different. Lacking the financial muscle and lobbying networks of the industry giants, they face a rigged fiscal playing field that erodes competitiveness, marginalizes product diversity, and ultimately limits consumers’ access to lower-risk options.

The tale of “fiscal harmonization” also functions as a geopolitical maneuver: centralizing authority, reducing national leeway, and strengthening the Commission’s hand in a historically sensitive domain. Here, public health serves as a legitimizing alibi—few dare challenge a tax when it arrives dressed in the unassailable garb of cancer prevention.

Yet the contradiction is glaring. Even as Brussels promises a “tobacco-free generation” by 2040, the very tax structure it champions threatens to entrench the market it claims to dismantle. The paradox invites an unsettling question: who benefits when less harmful alternatives become fiscally unviable? European citizens—or the institutions, corporations, and investors ever ready to adapt and thrive in any given landscape?

In Brussels, power rarely plays out in public speeches. It unfolds in discreet offices, between technical papers, endless dinners, and hurried coffees. Behind the neutral language of “harmonization” lies a fierce battle among lobbies, including tobacco firms, pharmaceutical giants, public health NGOs, and national governments. Each defends its narrative, while the Commission plays both referee and arena, balancing interests that present themselves as medical but ultimately obey the cold calculus of money and influence.

Big Tobacco: The Double Game
The major tobacco companies were late to the vaping market, but they quickly learned to speak two languages at once. In reports to shareholders, they celebrate cigarette profits. In Brussels, they showcase sleek catalogs of electronic devices, cloaked in the unimpeachable rhetoric of innovation and harm reduction. Without favorable regulation, their strategy isn’t to replace one market with another—it’s to keep both alive. Every tax that raises the cost of vaping extends the profitability of cigarettes. For multinationals, regulatory ambiguity isn’t an obstacle—it’s fertile ground. They win on all fronts.

Pharmaceuticals: Guardians of Their Niche
Meanwhile, the big pharmaceutical companies jealously guard their territory. Vaping threatens a well-established business built on nicotine patches, gums, and sprays. Their lobbying efforts in Brussels invoke precaution to slow the spread of alternative products. They present themselves as stewards of public health, but each restriction on vaping also serves as a reprieve for their cessation therapy market.

Public Health NGOs: Between Evidence and Dogma
Health organizations play an ambivalent role. Some advocate for proportionality and acknowledge the value of vaping as a harm reduction tool. Others cling to a rigid reading of the precautionary principle: all nicotine products are suspect, without nuance. Their influence lies not in money, but in narrative—they provide the moral legitimacy bureaucrats need to dress fiscal policy in the garments of health. And, not infrequently, their own institutional survival depends on nicotine remaining the great public menace.

EU Member States: Addicted to Revenue
National governments, often subordinate to the weight of EU policymaking, complete the picture. Dependent on the more than €70 billion collected annually from tobacco taxes, they see the TED as a tool to balance budgets and patch holes in the internal market. Germany, France, Spain, and sixteen other member states have called for the framework to include electronic devices as well. Their priority—thinly veiled as prevention—is not public health, but fiscal security.

How Risk Is Legislated

In Brussels, the word “attractiveness” has quietly become a regulatory category. The draft of the new Tobacco Excise Directive (TED) states outright that its fiscal framework aims to “reduce the attractiveness” of non-combustible nicotine products. The term, seemingly neutral, carries a clear political decision: to disincentivize all forms of use equally, effectively erasing the distinction between a combustible cigarette and a low-toxicity vape.

In public health, the principle of proportionality should be sacrosanct: the intensity of regulation and taxation ought to correspond to the actual harm each product causes. This is not about the tired liberal cliché of individual freedom versus the common good—it’s about something more tangible: measuring and calibrating risk. No one argues that banning drunk driving or requiring seat belts saves lives. But here, a one-size-fits-all logic is being imposed, equating unequal risks and creating regulatory injustice.

To legislate without recognizing this difference is like applying the same safety standards to a bicycle and a Formula One car, a false neutrality that leads, inevitably, to more deaths and more preventable illness. Comparative evidence confirms this: where lower-risk alternatives are accessible and socially legitimate, smoking rates fall dramatically.

And yet in Brussels, the language of proportionality has been displaced by that of suspicion. Under the umbrella of “attractiveness,” the Commission implies that any nicotine use is undesirable, even when it doesn’t burn lungs or cause comparable levels of disease. This imposes a worldview not of risk management, but of attempted eradication. And history—of alcohol, drugs, even sexuality—has shown time and again that absolute prohibition tends to cause more harm than it prevents.

The underlying question is uncomfortable: who benefits from a tax framework that flattens the entire spectrum of risk? The unseen actors who ensure stable revenues—crucial but kept behind the scenes? The tobacco giants, who preserve their core business while adapting with studied slowness? The smuggling networks that thrive in every regulatory gap?

What remains unprotected, once again, are real lives: smokers who might quit, young people who might start with less harmful products, and families bearing the health and economic costs of combustible tobacco.

Legislating risk should be an act of pragmatic compassion: to reduce harm, provide exits, and protect the most vulnerable. Instead, the TED enshrines an extreme precautionary stance, masked as a fiscal technique. And when prevention severs itself from evidence, public health ceases to be science—it becomes dogma.

A Politics Spoken in Two Tongues

The letter signed by 83 experts can be read in many ways, but in any light, it speaks beyond technicalities: it is a manifesto against institutional blindness. The signatories warn that equating unequal risks is not evidence, it is dogma; that ignoring comparative experience is not prudence, it is a renunciation of science. And they remind us of the inescapable truth: each year of delay means shorter lives across Europe.

The letter arrives at a moment when science answers some questions while resisting the oversimplification of others. Yes: vaping aerosol contains far fewer toxins than cigarette smoke. Yes: concern for adolescents is valid. Yes: illicit markets and cross-border price disparities distort any common policy. The mistake lies in thinking that a single lever—a high tax applied across the board—can solve problems as varied as these.

Beyond data and citations, the letter poses the essential question: what does it mean to protect public health? Does it mean punishing all nicotine use equally, even at the cost of preserving the deadliest products? Or does it mean accepting human imperfection and creating real pathways to reduce harm—here and now?

The signatories’ gesture is bold: it breaks the inertia of an apparatus that often prefers rhetoric to evidence. Their plea echoes with historical resonance. A society that has lived through Prohibition and the War on Drugs should have learned this much: public health is better protected by pragmatic bridges than by moral walls.

Today, the TED is not just a tax directive; it is a mirror reflecting the kind of political community the European Union aspires to be. One that clings to a precautionary reading so rigid it flattens proportionality, morality disguised as technique? Or one that dares to write compassion in the cold language of taxation?

Every directive carries an embedded set of values. And in this one, the choice is brutally simple: does Brussels prefer to keep collecting revenue on the momentum of smoke, or to save lives by differentiating between risks? The letter won’t move mountains, but it reminds us of what matters: behind each fiscal technicality, there are lungs inhaling, families slipping into poverty, and young people choosing between one product and another.

Europe, weary of its new hygienist utopias, must now decide: will it govern desire with the cold hand of control, or with the clear-eyed grace of compassion?

The letter

Dear President of the Commission and European Commissioners:

We, the undersigned experts in public health, nicotine dependence, and tobacco control, write to you out of concern over the forthcoming review of the Tobacco Excise Directive, which is expected to impose new taxes on less harmful nicotine products.

Public health policies should use the best available scientific evidence. It is, therefore, a matter of significant concern that recent EU public communications,^1,2 claiming that non-combustible nicotine delivery products pose health risks comparable to combustible cigarettes, contradict the best available scientific evidence. This position is not only a significant departure from the foundational principle of evidence-based public health but also undermines the European Commission’s vital commitments to data-driven legislation and to combating disinformation.

Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death in the EU, with nearly 700,000 premature deaths annually. Twenty-six per cent of citizens (29% among 15–24-year-olds) still smoke.³

Extensive scientific evidence has proven that non-combustible nicotine products such as e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products, and nicotine pouches are substantially less harmful than cigarettes. These products have also helped millions quit smoking.

• In Sweden, where snus and nicotine pouches are commonly used, daily tobacco use is the lowest in the EU (<5%) and cancer incidence is 41% below the EU average, despite overall nicotine use being similar to the EU average.⁴

• In the United Kingdom where the government encourages smokers to switch to vaping, smoking has fallen from 17% to 12% in five years.⁵

• In New Zealand, daily smoking dropped to 7% in 2023/24, from 16% in 2011/12, while daily vaping has risen to 11%.⁶

Regulation should be guided by science. Ideological or moral beliefs should not guide public health policies and must not override the facts and the goal to improve the health and lives of Europeans. Protection of minors is important, but it can be achieved by proper implementation of the already established regulation on advertising and sales, without hindering the public health objectives of reducing death and disease caused by smoking.

Smokers should have access to non-combustible alternatives. Fiscal and regulatory provisions that discourage the switch from smoking to less risky alternatives are unethical and protect the cigarette trade.

Commissioners, public health in Europe stands at a crossroads: in the coming months, the European Commission intends to advance the Tobacco Products Directive and the Tobacco Excise Directive. Implementing a “tax-raid” on potentially life-saving products will keep smokers smoking, will harm public health, and will set a bad paradigm for other countries (particularly LMICs) and regions globally.

Sources

1. https://x.com/OliverVarhelyi/status/1945539807523832261

2. https://x.com/OliverVarhelyi/status/1945549946192577022

3. https://health.ec.europa.eu/tobacco/overview_en

4. https://smokefreesweden.org/No%20Smoke%20Less%20Harm.pdf

5. https://ashscotland.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Smoking-and-vaping- statistics-factsheet_June_2025.pdf

6. https://www.health.govt.nz/statistics-research/surveys/new-zealand-health-survey/publications/202324-survey-publications/trends-in-smoking-and-vaping

Sincerely,

Signatories

1. Jasjit S. Ahluwalia — MD, MPH, MS, Professor, Behavioral and Social Sciences and Professor of Medicine; Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies; Brown University School of Public Health and Alpert School of Medicine. USA.

2. Philippe Arvers — MD. Addiction & Tobacco Specialist, Army Medical Center (CMA); Administrator, Francophone Tobacco Society (SFT); Associate Researcher, University of Grenoble Alpes & University of Savoie Mont-Blanc. France.

3. Marcin Bąder — Head of the Clinical Research Support Center. National Institute of Medicine, Ministry of Interior and Administration. Poland.

4. Anastasia Barbouni — MD, MSc, PhD. Professor of Public Health, Hygiene & Disease Prevention. Vice President Department of Public & Community Health School of Public Health, University of West Attica. Greece.

5. Fabio Beatrice — MD. Professor Emeritus of Otolaryngology, Hospital San Giovanni Bosco; Scientific Board Director Medical Observatory on Harm Reduction, (MOHRE). Italy.

6. Carolyn Beaumont — GP, FRACGP, MD, DipChildHealth, BMedSci (Dist.), Tobacco harm reduction clinician, educator and public speaker. Australia.

7. Pavel Bém — MD, PhD. Addictology Clinic, Charles University; Former Mayor of Prague. Czech Republic.

8. György Bodoky — Prof. Dr. Clinical oncologist. St. László Hospital, Dept. of Oncology. Hungary.

9. John Britton — Emeritus Professor, Former Director of the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies, Former Chair of the Royal College of Physicians Tobacco Advisory Group, and member of the board of trustees of Action on Smoking and Health. University of Nottingham. UK.

10. Hugo Caballero Durán — MD Former president of the Colombian Society of Pneumology. Former Clinical Scientific Director of Marly Clinic. Director of the Pneumology and Respiratory Therapy Service, Marly Clinic Bogotá. Colombia.

11. Salvatore Chirumbolo — PhD. Professor, Department of Engineering for Innovation Medicine, University of Verona. Italy.

12. Alice Alberta Cittone —Dental Hygienist, Myoralcare app project manager Scientific Director, Inter-Parliamentary Group on Lifestyles and Risk Reduction. Turin. Italy.

13. Manuel País Clemente — MD, PhD. Retired Full Professor Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Porto University School of Medicine, Vice-President European Medical Association. President World Voice Consortium, Portugal. International Association on Smoking Control and Harm Reduction (SCOHRE) Founding member. Portugal.

14. Kenneth Michael Cummings — PhD, MPH Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, and co-director Tobacco Research Hollings Cancer Center, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston. USA

15. Ole Davidsen — MD. Specialist in Geriatrics & Internal Medicine. Denmark.

16. Izabella Dessoulavy-Gładysz — CEO, Mental Power- Brain Health Foundation. Poland.

17. Carmen Escrig — PhD. Genetics & Cell Biology, Autonomous University of Madrid. Spanish Medical Platform for Tobacco Harm Reduction (PRDT) Founding member. Spain.

18. Sharifa Ezat Wan Puteh — Professor of Hospital Management and Health Economics; Deputy Dean (Relation & Wealth Creation), Faculty of Medicine, UKM Medical Centre; Previous Head of International Centre for Casemix and Clinical Coding (ITCC), UKM Medical Centre, Malaysia.

19. Karl Fagerström — PhD, Lic. Psych. Professor Emeritus; President, Fagerström Consulting. International Association on Smoking Control and Harm Reduction (SCOHRE) Founding member. Sweden.

20. Andrzej M. Fal — Dr. Professor of Medicine. President, Polish Society of Public Health. Poland.

21. Konstantinos Farsalinos — MD, MPH, PhD. Researcher, University of Patras & University of West Attica; Vice-President, International Association on Smoking Control and Harm Reduction (SCOHRE). Greece.

22. Fernando Fernández Bueno — MD. Oncological surgeon at the Hospital Central de la Defensa Gómez Ulla. Professor at the University of Alcalá de Henares Madrid. International Association on Smoking Control and Harm Reduction (SCOHRE) Founding member. Spanish Medical Platform for Tobacco Harm Reduction (PRDT) Founding member. Spain.

23. José Mª García Basterrechea — MD. Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Murcia; Former Head, Addiction & Dual Pathology Unit, Reina Sofía Hospital. Spanish Medical Platform for Tobacco Harm Reduction (PRDT) member. Spain.

24. José David García Muñiz — MD, PhD. Clinical Pharmacology & Internal Medicine; Clinical Trials Coordinator & Principal Investigator, University Hospital of Ceuta. Spanish Medical Platform for Tobacco Harm Reduction (PRDT) member. Spain.

25. Guillermo González Balmaseda — MD. Specialist in Psychiatry, Madrid. Spanish Medical Platform for Tobacco Harm Reduction (PRDT) member. Spain.

26. Miguel de la Guardia — PhD. Professor of Analytical Chemistry, University of Valencia. Spanish Medical Platform for Tobacco Harm Reduction (PRDT) member. Spain.

27. Carlos Gutiérrez Rodríguez — MD. Specialist in Intensive Care Medicine. Spanish Medical Platform for Tobacco Harm Reduction (PRDT) member. Spain.

28. Peter Hajek — PhD. Professor of Clinical Psychology, Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary University of London. UK.

29. Wayne Hall — PhD. Emeritus Professor, National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research, University of Queensland. Australia.

30. Eszter HALMY —PhD, MSc Obesity researcher, health services manager. President of the Hungarian Society for Study of Obesity. Hungary.

31. Ignatios Ikonomidis — MD, PhD, FESC, Professor of Cardiology, Member of EACVI, ex. Nucleus member of ESC WG on Aorta & Peripheral Vascular Diseases, Director of Echocardiography and the Laboratory of Preventive Cardiology, 2nd Cardiology Department, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Attikon Hospital, Athens. International Association on Smoking Control and Harm Reduction (SCOHRE) Board President. Greece.

32. Martin Jarvis — Emeritus Professor of Health Psychology. University' College London. UK.

33. Martin Juneau — MD, MPSc, FRCP(C), FACC. Cardiologist; Director, Observatoire de la Prévention, Montreal Heart Institute; Maître de Clinique, Faculté de Médecine, Université de Montréal. Canada.

34. Māris Jurušs — PhD. OEC. Associate Professor, Riga Technical University. Latvia.

35. Piotr Karniej — PhD. Assistant Professor, WSB Merito University, Wrocław; Collaborating Researcher, University of La Rioja. Poland/Spain.

36. Joe Kosterich — M.B.B.S WA State Medical Director for IPN, Clinical Editor of Medical Forum Magazine and Vice Chairman of the Arthritis and Osteoporosis Association of WA Perth West Australia.

37. Lynn T. Kozlowski — PhD. Professor Emeritus & Dean Emeritus, School of Public Health & Health Professions, University at Buffalo, State University of New York. USA.

38. Jacques Le Houezec — PhD. Scientist & Smoking-Cessation Specialist; Manager, Amzer Glas – CIMVAPE, training and certification organisation. France.

39. Manuel Linares Abad — PhD. Nurse Specialist in Obstetrics & Gynecology; Former Dean, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Jaén. Spanish Medical Platform for Tobacco Harm Reduction (PRDT) member. Spain.

40. Karl E. Lund — PhD. Senior Researcher, Norwegian Institute of Public Health. International Association on Smoking Control and Harm Reduction (SCOHRE) Board Vice President. Norway.

41. Olivia Maynard — PhD. Associate Professor, School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol. UK.

42. Bernhard-Michael Mayer — PhD. Professor of Pharmacology, University of Graz. Austria.

43. Garrett McGovern — MD. GP specialising in Addiction Medicine; Medical Director, Priority Medical Clinic, Dublin. Ireland.

44. Colin P. Mendelsohn — MB BS (Hons). Tobacco Treatment Specialist; Founding Chairman, Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association (ATHRA). Sydney. Australia.

45. Fares Mili — MD, CTTS. Pulmonologist & Addictologist; Chairman, Tunisian Society of Tobacology and Addictive Behaviors (STTACA). International Association on Smoking Control and Harm Reduction (SCOHRE) Board Member. Tunisia.

46. Kristina Mitikj — PhD, DDS. Professor, Faculty of Dentistry, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University. North Macedonia.

47. Vincenzo Montemurro — MD. Cardiology and Internal Medicine. Head of the Cardiology Service of the CDC "Scilla d'America" (ASP Reggio Calabria) Scilla, National Secretary of the "We Are the Heart" Foundation of the S.I.C. (Italian Society of Cardiology). Italy.

48. Viktor Mravčík — MD, PhD, Assoc. Prof. Vice-chairman of the board of the Society for addictive diseases of the Czech Medical Association, Scientific advisor to national drug coordinator, head of research and innovations, Spolecnost Podane Ruce. Czech Republic.

49. Maddu Narendra — PhD. Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Sri Krishnadevaraya University. India.

50. Ethan Nadelmann — JD, PhD. Founder & former Executive Director, Drug Policy Alliance. USA.

51. Joel L. Nitzkin — MD, MPH, DPA. CEO & Principal Consultant, JLNMD Consultants, New Orleans, LA. USA.

52. Fredrik H. Nystrom — MD, PhD. Professor of Internal Medicine, Linköping University. Sweden.

53. David Nutt — Prof. DM FRCP FRCPsych FBPhS FMedSci DLaws. Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology, Imperial College London. UK.

54. Marko Ölluk — MD. Clinical Lead, Confido Health Centre; Family Practitioner. Estonia.

55. Fiona Patten — former Member of Parliament Victoria Australia. Harm Reduction speaker.

56. Uladzimir Pikirenia — MD, PhD, Psychiatrist, Psychiatric Hospital in Frombork, Frombork, Poland.

57. Wolfgang Popp — MD. Professor. Pulmonologist. Vienna. Austria.

58. Marek Postula — MD, PhD. CEO, Polish Society of Longevity Medicine; Medical University of Warsaw. Poland.

59. Hernán Prat — MD. Professor, University of Chile; Former Director Cardiovascular Department, Clinical Hospital of the University of Chile. Former President, Chilean Society of Hypertension. Chile.

60. Josep Maria Ramon Torrell — MD, PhD. Professor of Epidemiology & Public Health; Tobacco Prevention Service, Bellvitge Hospital, University of Barcelona. Spanish Medical Platform for Tobacco Harm Reduction (PRDT) member. Spain.

61. Solomon Rataemane — Prof. Independent Psychiatrist. Former Chairman of Department of Psychiatry Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University. Africa regional Rep. World Association for Psychosocial Rehabilitation. Chair: Ministerial Advisory Committee on Mental Health. International Association on Smoking Control and Harm Reduction (SCOHRE) Founding member. South Africa.

62. Dimitri Richter — MD. Cardiologist, FESC. Head of Cardiac Department, Euroclinic; Vice-President, Hellenic Heart Foundation. International Association on Smoking Control and Harm Reduction (SCOHRE) Founding member. Greece.

63. Randall Rodríguez Obando — MD. Specialist in Internal Medicine & HIV Harm Reduction. Costa Rica.

64. Brad Rodu — Professor of Medicine; Endowed Chair in Tobacco Harm Reduction Research, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY. USA.

65. Benjamin Rolland —Prof. Psychiatre, Addictologue Pôle MOPHA (Médecine-Odontologie-Pharmacie-Addictologie), CH Le Vinatier Service Universitaire d’Addictologie de Lyon (SUAL), Hospices Civils de Lyon, CH Le Vinatier Service d'Accompagnement Médical des Centres de Rétention Administrative Lyonnais (SAMCRAL), Hospices Civils de Lyon. France.

66. Louise Ross — Stop-Smoking Lead, Smoke Free Digital; Former Manager, Leicester Stop Smoking Service. UK.

67. Christos Savopoulos — Professor of Internal Medicine. Director of 1st Medical Propedeutic Dept of Internal Medicine & Stroke Unit, Excellence Center of Hypertension AHEPA University Hospital. Thessaloniki. Greece.

68. Rohan Savio Sequeira — Prof. Dr. MD PhD Endocrine (HARVARD - USA) Consultant Cardio-Metabolic Physician. Specialist in Non-Invasive Cardiology, Diabetes, Endocrinology and Obesity Management Hon. Consultant Physician to the Governor of Maharashtra Professor and Head of the Department of Geriatric Medicine: Sir JJ Group of Govt Hospitals and Grant Govt Medical College. India.

69. Evangelos Sdogkos — MD. Director of Cardiology, General Hospital of Veroia. Greece.

70. Andrzej Sobczak — PhD Professor. Head of Department of General and Inorganic Chemistry Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Sosnowiec Medical University of Silesia Katowice. Poland.

71. Ranko Stevanović — MD, PhD. President, Croatian Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Health Economics; Croatian National Institute of Public Health. Croatia.

72. Roberto A Sussman — PhD. Institute for Nuclear Research, National Autonomous University of Mexico, ICNUNAM.

73. David T. Sweanor — JD. Chair of the Advisory Board, Centre for Health Law, Policy & Ethics, University of Ottawa; Legal Counsel, Non-Smokers’ Rights Association (1983-2005). Canada.

74. Andrzej W. Szawlowski — Prof. MD, PhD, FACS. Oncologic Surgeon, Warsaw. Poland.

75. Ingrid D. Taricano — Prof. PhD. Independent toxicologist. São Paulo. Brazil.

76. Enrique Terán — MD, PhD. Professor, College of Health Sciences, Universidad San Francisco de Quito. Ecuadorian Academy of Medicine. Academy of Science of Ecuador. Ecuador.

77. Umberto Tirelli — Prof. Scientific and Health Director Tirelli Medical Group Clinic. Specialist in Oncology, Hematology and Infectious Diseases. Italy.

78. Philip Tønnesen — MD. Specialist in Pulmonary Medicine; Expert in smoking cessation. Senior Consultant, Søernes Privathospital. Denmark.

79. Francisco E. Urresta — MD. Medical Director, Hospital Clínica Metropolitana, Ibarra. Ecuador.

80. Diego Verrastro — MD. Independent Specialist in Obesity and Emergency Medicine Surgeon. Argentina.

81. Kenneth E. Warner — PhD. Distinguished University Professor Emeritus & Dean Emeritus, University of Michigan School of Public Health. USA.

82. Alex Wodak — AM, FRACP, FAChAM. Emeritus Consultant, St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, Australia.

83. Dirk Ziebolz — Prof. Dr. M.Sc. Dental, Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Specialist. Germany.

Signatory Entities:

• ETHRA — European Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates. EU Transparency Register: 354946837243-73

• MOHRE — Medical Observatory on Harm Reduction. Via Tomba di Nerone 14, 00189 Rome. Italy. https://mohre.it/

• PRDT — Spanish Medical Platform for Tobacco Harm Reduction. EU Transparency Register: 166296541422-35

• SCOHRE — International Association for Smoking Control and Harm Reduction, Michel Ange 12, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium.

• Tobacco Harm Reduction, Inc. (THR101) — Registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting public health through science-based education, research, and advocacy. Florida, USA

Summer 2025 arrives in the Crozon Peninsula like a perfect postcard: the sea glistens in metallic blue, children build sandcastles, and families rest under brightly colored umbrellas.

But one detail interrupts the softness of the landscape; the setting is not just touristic, it’s also educational. On posts and fences, red and white signs warn beachgoers: no smoking here.

French civic pedagogy operates in the shadow of these signs—not strident, but firm. The €135 fine, negligible for some but a real blow to much of the working class, is rarely enforced because most comply without resistance. “It’s better this way. Nobody wants cigarette butts in the sand,” a woman told Le Télégramme on August 19, 2025.

The French decree reaches far beyond Crozon’s idyllic scene. It extends to parks, schools, bus stops, and sports facilities. In all these spaces, lit tobacco is banned. The electronic cigarette, however, is not.

That exception reveals an ambiguous policy. The electronic device is acknowledged as less harmful, but officials stop short of promoting it as a legitimate alternative. The contradiction is not just regulatory but symbolic: the difference is acknowledged, but its implications are sidestepped.

Municipalities apply the measure pragmatically. In Crozon and Camaret-sur-Mer, signs abound, and police presence is more symbolic than coercive: it’s about civic education, not targeted punishment. In other cities, where enforcement is unfeasible, the burden of compliance falls squarely on the citizens.

In official discourse, the measure rests on two pillars: public health and environmental protection. Secondhand smoke is a recurring argument, but so are cigarette butts—tiny, nearly indestructible residues that infiltrate beaches, rivers, and the stomachs of seabirds. Every extinguished cigarette contains heavy metals and persistent pollutants—toxic waste that, in its smallest form, reveals society’s broader failure to manage its own trash.

Vigilant France

Despite its calm appearance, France’s relationship with vaping is far from peaceful. Surveys by the Alliance contre le Tabac and IFOP reveal that 15% of teenagers aged 13 to 16 have already tried disposable vapes—though not necessarily as regular users. Among those who do use them, 43% say they would turn to traditional cigarettes if flavored vapes were banned.

For health authorities, this statistic serves as an uncomfortable reminder: the vision of a smoke-free future, as evoked by Minister Catherine Vautrin, collides head-on with reality—and with the growing popularity of cheap, colorful, flavored devices.

The scientific consensus, however, is (slightly) clearer. As Swedish researcher Karl Fagerström puts it: “Smoking, in any circumstance, is always worse than vaping.” Nicotine—even at high doses—carries far lower risks than tobacco smoke, which contains over 7,000 toxic substances from combustion.

That difference helps explain why, among adults, six out of ten French smokers turn to vaping when trying to quit. They report less fatigue, easier breathing, and financial relief. For them, vapor isn’t a threat—it’s an ally.

The government, however, sticks to its cautious stance: an unyielding fight against tobacco, paired with hesitant tolerance toward vaping. An uneasy coexistence: statistically half-embraced, institutionally eyed with suspicion.

Westminster’s Restrictive Turn

Roughly 150 kilometers from Crozon, across the English Channel, the landscape shifts.

In August 2025, The Guardian sounded the alarm: young people who use vapes were said to be “three times more likely to start smoking,” along with a list of supposed risks—asthma, mental health disorders, assorted complications. A catalog of fears.

The same report acknowledged that most of the studies cited were observational and didn’t prove causation. But the panic had already taken hold. Under media pressure, both the WHO and the UK’s Department of Health called for urgent passage of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.

Westminster acted swiftly. By June 2025, disposable vapes were banned, flavors restricted, and packaging standardized. In official discourse, there was talk of a “youth nicotine epidemic”—a phrase that suggested chaos more than evidence. Policy took on a tone of dramatic performance: less a response to proven risk than a move to ease the diffuse sense that the country had lost control.

The paradox is striking. For nearly a decade, the UK was the global laboratory for harm reduction. Since Public Health England declared in 2015 that vaping was “95% less harmful than smoking,” the NHS incorporated it into cessation programs, hospitals began distributing it, and public campaigns encouraged switching from cigarettes to vapor.

The results were clear: in 2015, 17.2% of adults smoked; by 2022, only 12.9%. By 2025, projections place the figure just above 10%—a rare decline in the developed world.

Today, however, that model appears to be wobbling. Professor Ann McNeill of King’s College London dismantled the review underpinning the new law: 53 out of 56 systematic reviews were rated “low or critically low quality.” For McNeill, the problem is methodological: mistaking correlation for causation.

Ironically, population studies suggest the opposite: where vaping rises (even among youth), smoking tends to fall. But the scientific debate has been pushed aside by the momentum of political rhetoric.

Two Pedagogies in Tension

The contrast between France and the United Kingdom reveals not only divergent policies but also different forces at play.

In France, NGOs like the League Against Cancer push for stricter bans, accusing vaping of luring teenagers. The government responds cautiously: it acknowledges vaping is less harmful than smoking but resists endorsing it. It’s a policy of unstable balance—an ambiguity cultivated as a strategy.

In the UK, the logic flips. The NHS continues to support vaping as an effective cessation tool, backed by Cochrane reviews that confirm its benefits. But in Westminster, political panic prevails: disposable vapes—perfect symbols of modern waste—are turned into public enemies.

Thus, the contradiction deepens: in the UK, adults are encouraged to switch from cigarettes to vapes, while teenagers are caught between alarms and bans, amplified under the dramatic label of a “youth epidemic,” a caricature that hides more than it reveals.

In France, by contrast, tobacco remains the primary villain, while the e-cigarette occupies an uncertain space: silently tolerated, warily watched.

Between Science and Moral Panic

At its core, what unfolds is a clash of paradigms and interests.

On one side, the harm reduction paradigm: pragmatic, grounded in the understanding that nicotine is unlikely to vanish from human experience. It begins with the premise that insisting on utopia—total eradication—is neither a realistic public policy nor a viable health strategy. Instead, it calls for action grounded in reality: tolerating imperfections to save lives, even at the cost of legitimizing the habit of vaping.

On the other side, the paradigm of absolute precaution: rigid, driven by the promise of eradicating nicotine entirely—even if it means discarding tools that might, in fact, save lives.

Both approaches hold legitimate concerns. Tobacco remains the leading cause of preventable deaths in Europe, and dismissing vaping’s potential could prove costly. But it’s equally true that disposable devices exert an undeniable pull on teenagers.

Ultimately, the dispute isn’t purely scientific—it’s cultural, political, ethical, and economic. A battlefield where what’s at stake is not only the efficacy and relevance of public health policies, but how a society chooses to live with its own contradictions.

Meanwhile, on the beaches of Brittany, the sand is finally free of the cigarette butts once wedged between seashells and children’s sandcastles.

Across the Channel, the British Parliament gets tangled in heated debates over strawberry flavors and standardized packaging.

Europe seems suspended between two gestures: oscillating between the pedagogy of responsibility and the politics of fear.

The outcome of this swing will define not only the future of vaping, but also the capacity of democracies to navigate their contradictions without surrendering to hysteria.

The sea carries on, indifferent. But Europe’s governments can’t afford such indifference. The uncomfortable question lingers: will nicotine be regulated as an inescapable drug, or demonized as though human desire could be banned by decree?

The New Morality of Nicotine: A Decade Between Science and Suspicion

• 2015 – Two Starting Points

  
  United Kingdom – Public Health England publishes a report that will become a global benchmark: vaping is “approximately 95% less harmful than smoking.” Thus begins the era of harm reduction. The NHS incorporates e-cigarettes into its cessation programs, hospitals begin distributing them, and national campaigns encourage switching from tobacco to vapor.
  
  France – The debate is still in its infancy. The government equates e-cigs with conventional tobacco: it restricts advertising, bans sales to minors, and avoids any gesture of encouragement. The device is approached with caution—more of a question mark than a solution.
  

• 2016–2019 – Diverging Strategies

  United Kingdom – Hospitals begin allowing vape use in outdoor areas. Local authorities form partnerships with shops, offering discounts and starter kits. The country cements its status as an international benchmark, celebrated as a pioneer in harm reduction.

  
  France – Santé Publique France focuses its efforts on youth prevention campaigns, while NGOs like Alliance contre le Tabac warn of the risks posed by appealing flavors. Social pressure mounts, but the government takes a cautious step: tolerate without promoting.
  

• 2020 – Pandemic and Distractions
  
  United Kingdom – Brexit and Covid-19 reshuffle the government’s priorities. Smoking loses political prominence, although the data reveal a historic drop: fewer than 14% of the adult population smokes. At the same time, and almost unnoticed, youth consumption of disposable vapes begins to rise—a sign that a new wave is on the horizon.
  

  France – The government tightens marketing restrictions, and the debate over banning disposables begins to gain traction. While the pandemic dominates public attention, surveys detect a modest increase in teen experimentation, keeping a lingering concern alive.
  

• 2021 – Institutional Ambiguity
  
  United Kingdom – The historic Public Health England is replaced by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID). The shift marks the beginning of a fragmented narrative: on one hand, adult smokers are encouraged to adopt vaping as a cessation tool; on the other, growing caution surrounds youth use, now widespread among disposable vape users.
  

  France – NGOs like the Comité National Contre le Tabagisme intensify lobbying efforts against flavors and disposable devices. The Ministry of Health acknowledges the lower harm of e-cigarettes but sticks to a precautionary stance: it recognizes the distinction without translating it into cessation policy.
  

• 2022 – American Echoes
  
  United Kingdom – The American panic surrounding JUUL and the EVALI syndrome (a lung disease linked to illicit THC liquids), which had already crossed the Atlantic, resurfaces in the British press. The rhetoric of a “vaping epidemic” begins to be imported, dressed up as a public health concern and proactive policymaking, laying the groundwork for a stricter political shift—at odds with the UK’s legacy as a harm reduction pioneer.
  

  France – The League Against Cancer steps up its campaigns against sweet flavors and disposable devices. At the same time, the country solidifies a new line of argument: the environmental one. Cigarette butts and disposable vapes are condemned not just as health hazards, but as toxic and persistent waste—symbols of a society that poisons and pollutes itself in equal measure.
  

• 2023 – The Disposable Vape Boom
  
  United Kingdom – Cheap, colorful, and flavored products flood the market, becoming a trend among teenagers. Youth use skyrockets, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government announces plans to impose strict regulations: banning disposables, limiting flavors, and standardizing packaging. Yet, the NHS continues to publish official materials recommending e-cigarettes as the most effective strategy to quit smoking—highlighting a nation split between pragmatic science and political panic.

  
  France – An IFOP study reveals that 15% of teenagers aged 13 to 16 have already tried disposable vapes. The statistic dominates headlines and strengthens the pressure from NGOs and experts calling for stricter measures. The issue takes center stage in public debate, crystallizing the image of disposables as a new threat—both to youth and the environment.
  

• 2024 – The Battle of Scientific Narratives
  
  United Kingdom – Researchers affiliated with King’s College London, such as Ann McNeill, publish reviews showing that, at the population level, vaping has contributed to a reduction in smoking rates. But the WHO and anti-tobacco NGOs hold a contrary view, emphasizing risks and uncertainty. The media—particularly The Guardian—amplifies the gateway effect narrative, suggesting that young vapers are destined to transition to cigarettes. The result is a cacophony of conflicting voices, where science, politics, and media pull in opposite directions.
  

  France – The government announces a nationwide ban on disposable vapes. At the same time, IFOP surveys reveal that 53% of smokers consider using vaping to quit cigarettes. Among adults, the perception of the device improves; among NGOs, pressure mounts over youth risk. France thus crystallizes its ambiguity: it partially legitimizes e-cigarettes, while shutting the door on their most popular format.
  

• 2025 – The Year of the Shift
  
  United Kingdom – The Tobacco and Vapes Bill has finally been passed, ushering in the most restrictive phase the country has ever seen. The law will be rolled out in stages:

  • Phase 1 – Gradual Tobacco Ban: As of January 1, 2027, it will be illegal to sell tobacco to anyone born on or after January 1, 2009. The legal age will increase year by year, effectively blocking access for future generations.

  • Phase 2 – Vapes: Beginning in June 2025, the sale of disposable vapes is banned. The bill also restricts flavors and flashy packaging to curb youth appeal.

  • Phase 3 – Licensing and Enforcement: A licensing system is introduced for selling tobacco and vapes, with fines of up to £2,500 for violations.

  • Phase 4 – Complementary Measures: Smoke- and vape-free zones are expanded (including playgrounds and schools), and mandatory retailer registration is broadened.
    

  The dominant narrative adopts the tone of a crusade to protect youth from a supposed “new nicotine epidemic”—an exaggerated phrase that reveals more about political rhetoric than epidemiological reality. The contrast is stark: while Parliament builds walls, the NHS still recommends e-cigarettes as the most effective tool for adults trying to quit smoking.
  

  France – A national decree expands restrictions on smoking in open-air spaces—beaches, parks, sports facilities—but leaves vaping untouched by the law. In Crozon, locals celebrate butt-free beaches, as Le Télégramme reports. At the same time, a survey shows that 43% of young people would return to cigarettes if flavors were restricted. This contrast sums up the French ambivalence: ecological civility in the sand, but cultural instability whenever vapor and youth intersect.

And yet, the paradox emerges: while the combustible cigarette —that perfect machine of death— continues to circulate, it is the less harmful alternatives that bear the heaviest weight of punishment. In regulating, governments are not only confronting tobacco: they are confronting their ethical limits and their political and economic interests.

In the scorching summer of 2025, as Spain wrestled with the invisible flames of heat waves and the visible ones of increasingly bitter political disputes, Pedro Sánchez’s government put forth a decree that, at least on paper, aimed to save lives.

It was more than just a legal text: it was a desperate attempt to govern amid climate collapse and the deafening noise of a country fractured by its divisions.

On July 22, in a gesture as technical as it was deeply ideological, the government made public its responses to the objections raised by seven European countries—Sweden, Italy, Greece, and others—that had questioned its draft Royal Decree.

This was no minor regulation, but an instrument with the potential to quietly reshape a growing market: that of alternatives to combustible cigarettes, which today represent a path toward harm reduction for millions of people. Among its provisions, one stood out: a limit of 0.99 mg of nicotine per pouch in nicotine pouches. This figure seemed less about regulating and more about suffocating the product, effectively condemning it to disappear.

But Spain didn’t stop there. The proposal expanded the regulatory landscape: it mandated plain packaging for cigarettes, prohibited non-tobacco flavors in vapes, nicotine pouches, and herbal heated products (HPH), introduced new health warnings, and established a 5 mg nicotine limit per unit for HPH.

It was a decree that, beneath the technical veneer of public health, ignored the fundamental difference between combustible tobacco—the primary driver of mortality—and smokeless alternatives, introducing restrictions that threatened to erase that crucial boundary.

It was a declaration of war on the packaging of desire: an offensive against the glimmers, flavors, and aromas that for decades have masked the chemical violence of tobacco. But it was also an attack on the codes that, in lower-risk alternatives, have helped many smokers leave traditional cigarettes behind.

The official discourse stated it with the simplicity of the irrefutable: “This is not about the market, but about protecting life.” Yet the criticisms from its European neighbors exposed a deeper fracture: Is it coherent to ban or restrict to the point of suffocation less harmful alternatives while cigarettes, responsible for 95% of tobacco-related deaths, continue to circulate with far fewer obstacles? The question was not merely technical or legal: it was ethical, political, and, above all, uncomfortable.

Sweden, a country on the verge of achieving “smoke-free” status, responded with actions rather than rhetoric. In recent decades, it has reduced its adult smoking rate to under 5%—the lowest in Europe—thanks to the widespread use of snus and other oral nicotine products.

Its story is heresy in the temple of prohibitionism: proving that offering less harmful alternatives does not undermine public health policies but strengthens them, becoming a pragmatic path toward harm reduction. It is no surprise that Sweden led the objections to Spain’s decree: its very success stands as a challenge to the continent’s most rigid regulatory frameworks.

Spain, by contrast, shields itself behind the armor of European law and the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, insisting that its limits are not only compatible with these regulations but demanded by the higher principle of public health. It also denies that such measures could cause significant market disruptions or conflict with EU law.

However, time offers no reprieve: the suspension period will expire on July 28. After that, the decree will descend into the pit of Parliament, where politics—with its fragile alliances, strategic calculations, and deeper battles—will decide whether it survives or sinks.

Europe: A Continent Legislating at Multiple Speeds

The fragmentation of the European regulatory framework is not a new phenomenon. The EU’s Tobacco Products Directive sets common standards but leaves expansive room for member states to expand them at their discretion. That space, conceived for flexibility, has become fertile ground for divergent experiments: Europe today is a policy laboratory where each country tests its relationship with nicotine and tobacco—sometimes embracing harm reduction, sometimes banishing it to the same corner as combustion.

In the Netherlands, the government has taken another step in its crusade to strip tobacco and nicotine of their visual appeal: it is preparing plain packaging for vapes and cigarettes. This is not merely about changing wrappers, but about silencing the invisible language of marketing—the colors, textures, and shapes that, for generations, have seduced and tamed consumers.

Yet within this imposed silence lies a paradox: the regulation casts combustible tobacco—responsible for millions of deaths—and smokeless alternatives, whose risk is significantly lower according to much of the scientific evidence, under the same shadow of suspicion. By erasing the distinctions between problem and solution, policy may end up pushing consumers toward the deadliest product in the name of protecting them.

Here lies the same critique. Austria, aligned with the EU’s Delegated Act, has chosen to amputate the sensory appeal of heated tobacco products. It banned characteristic flavors, toughened health warnings, and granted the industry a deadline until May 2026 to adapt. It is a surgical move: excising the aromas that for years have sweetened the perception of risk, stripping these products of their seductive wrapping to expose their rawness.

Yet by applying the same scalpel to combustible tobacco and smokeless alternatives, Austria erases the essential differences between them, making identical products that science has placed at opposite ends of the harm spectrum. And in that homogenization, the goal of protecting risks gives way to contradiction.

The Czech Republic chose the scalpel: it will not ban all flavors, only the “candy-like” ones that “appeal to minors.” It is a policy that seeks to walk the fine line between protecting the most vulnerable and keeping available alternatives that, for many adult smokers, have served as a doorway out of traditional cigarettes.

On July 22, Health Minister Vlastimil Válek confirmed that his office is finalizing the draft, a measure first announced in August 2024 as a total flavor ban. But the waters have since calmed: by October of that year, the government clarified that the restriction would focus exclusively on flavors aimed at young audiences. It will not be an outright ban but a surgical adjustment that places Prague on the European board, in an intermediate position: avoiding the outright demonization of non-combustible products while addressing legitimate concerns about their appeal to minors.

Belgium, by contrast, chose to soften its proposal to limit nicotine use on outdoor terraces, removing the controversial requirement to maintain a ten-meter distance. The new approach restricts use only within the spaces occupied by the terraces and “in their immediate surroundings.”

The measure, driven by Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke, still has a long and winding road ahead: it must first become a draft bill, then open to parliamentary debate, and finally secure approval. The timeline does not favor urgency: forecasts suggest that the legislative process will not conclude before 2027. Belgium prefers measured deliberation over hasty decisions that could result in equating cigarettes and their alternatives without nuance.

And Bulgaria, after an administrative misstep, was forced to redo the procedure for its proposed ban on disposable vapes—a reminder that in the machinery of the European Union, deadlines and procedures are as political as the substance of the rules themselves.

On July 25, Sofia submitted a revised draft bill to the European Commission, replacing the notification sent on July 9. The earlier submission had been prematurely closed by Brussels after it found that the law had already been adopted and published in the Official Gazette before being presented—an action that breached EU protocol.

The Commission then “invited” Bulgaria either to withdraw the text or submit a new one, and the government chose the latter. A new suspension period now begins, set to conclude on October 28, 2025, while uncertainty lingers over the legislative path the proposal will follow. It is a pause that may, perhaps, allow for a more balanced discussion: how to regulate disposable devices without condemning the entire spectrum of less harmful alternatives.

Each of these moves reveals a different tension between protection, market forces, and individual freedoms. It forms a mosaic showing that Europe, more than legislating, is in dialogue—and at times in conflict—with itself: torn between the urgency to protect, the pressure of economic interests, and citizens’ right to decide what risks they are willing to take. In that fragmented mirror, health policy ceases to be merely technical; it becomes the reflection of a continent still struggling to accept that harm reduction can be an ally, not an enemy.

Beyond the Old Continent: The Prohibitionist Pendulum

The map doesn’t end at the Atlantic. Jamaica is preparing to silence the voice of tobacco and nicotine: a bill, long in the making since 2020, is moving toward a comprehensive advertising ban, cutting the problem at its root. This is not merely about prohibiting ads, but about dismantling the invisible discourse that, for decades, sustained the business of smoke—a language of promises, aspirations, and pleasures that turned consumption into a cultural act rather than an individual choice. Yet one decisive question remains: Will Jamaica distinguish between the risk dynamics of combustible tobacco and those of smokeless products, or will it lump them together under the same ban, erasing nuances that scientific evidence insists on underscoring?

In Malaysia, the government is considering a complete ban on the sale and use of vapes. “A process that requires careful deliberation,” admitted Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad. The dilemma is not technical but deeply political: how to prohibit without fracturing, how to impose a drastic measure without igniting resistance in a society that has already embraced these devices as a tool for leaving combustible tobacco behind.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, New Zealand is stepping back. In September 2025, it will revoke the requirement for vapes to have removable batteries—a rule that had clashed head-on with market realities and technological limitations. The move is mainly symbolic: the country once hailed as a global pioneer for its ambitious plan to become “smoke-free” is now tempering its aspirations with pragmatism. It serves as a reminder that even the boldest leaders in tobacco control must constantly negotiate between vision and viability, particularly when it comes to maintaining access to less harmful alternatives.

And the United Kingdom, true to its tradition of realism, chose a hybrid path: it does not attack consumption but manages its footprint. It has created a new category of electronic waste for vapes and heated tobacco products, integrating tobacco control into a broader environmental management strategy. The implicit message seems clear: the problem doesn’t end in the lungs—it continues in the landfills. And within this pragmatic logic, the UK has managed to sustain one of the most consistent harm-reduction approaches, without sacrificing its public health policy to the inertia of prohibitionism.

Legislating Life, Negotiating Desire

Each measure, from the Dutch plain packaging to the Malaysian ban, reveals more than a health strategy. These are decrees that speak their nations’ language: they tell national stories, expose collective fears, and trace the boundaries of what is politically possible. At its core, tobacco and nicotine regulation work like a mirror: it reflects what each society is willing to sacrifice to protect life and what it refuses to relinquish to preserve pleasure.

And so, amid decrees, deadlines, and public consultations, the world legislates not only over bodies and lungs but also over desires. Because tobacco—and its alternatives—still inhabit that uneasy territory where pleasure and death negotiate, day by day, the price of coexistence. The real question now is whether public policies will be able to distinguish between what kills and what can save.

Under the banner of public health, Europe moved toward stricter regulation of tobacco alternatives. However, what initially appeared to be a preventive measure is beginning to reveal the shape of a paradox: could this regulatory crusade, in the name of good, ultimately push millions of smokers back into the clutches of combustible cigarettes?

In the North of the Continent That Chose Neutrality… Even in Flavor

On July 1st, Copenhagen awoke to a city that was orderly, clean, and almost sterile. Not just in its streets, but in its shop windows: alternative nicotine products had lost their identity. Bright colors, sleek fonts, even sensory hints had been stripped away, replaced by flat, uniform, silent packaging, like gray-uniformed soldiers, marching toward invisibility.

Six executive orders from the Danish government took effect that day.

Nicotine pouches were capped at 9 mg per unit. All flavors except tobacco and menthol were banned. Retailers, including online shops, had to fortify their systems with age verification. Plain packaging rules have been extended to heated tobacco products (HTPs), which now also require 30% of their surface area to be covered in health warnings. The size of both pouches and heated sticks was regulated.

The logic behind these measures is simple—and seemingly unassailable: protect the young. But under that noble, irrefutable banner rises a regulatory architecture that, rather than preventing harm, ends up excluding.

What happens when the remedy blocks the path toward less harmful forms of nicotine use? When does the adult trying to quit smoking become a perpetual suspect? Isn’t Denmark, in effect, pushing these users into a nicotine limbo—or worse, back into the smoke of traditional cigarettes?

France: A Model of Quality Without Repression

Taking a more measured tone, France adopted a less prohibitionist and more technical approach.

On July 2nd, the French Standards Association (AFNOR) released a voluntary standard for nicotine pouches, which includes 16.6 mg per pouch, pharmaceutical- or food-grade ingredients, toxicological evaluation, packaging standards, and transparent labeling designed to inform, not frighten.

In this scene, tobacco alternatives are not criminalized but guided, as if the state were saying, “I don’t fully trust you, but I don’t want you to fall either.” It’s a middle path reminiscent of the Swedish model, where nicotine pouches have helped dramatically cut smoking rates.

France does not ban—it organizes and suggests.

The Map of an Asymmetric War

In Athens, the Hellenic Parliament debated among Ionic columns and ancestral murmurs. On July 4th, a law was passed banning the sale of tobacco products to minors, mandating age verification, and restricting cross-border trade. The measure will take effect once it is officially published.

In Vienna, the echoes of waltzes gave way to bureaucratic rhythms: the Austrian Parliament’s Health Committee approved the transposition of an EU directive banning flavors in heated tobacco products (HTPs) and requiring graphic warnings. If ratified, a transition period will run until May 2026, allowing for the sale of existing stock.

Meanwhile, the Netherlands and Norway are pushing forward with plain packaging and expanding smoke-free zones: in Oslo, schoolyards have become a regulatory battleground. A new wave of restrictions on online sales is scheduled to take effect in January 2026.

In Warsaw, July 5th marked a sharp regulatory turn: Poland banned sales to minors and all advertising for vapes and pouches, set a nicotine cap at 20 mg/g, and imposed 30% warning labels, with a six-month grace period for market adjustment.

In Sarajevo—more precisely, in the National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska—a law was passed on July 3rd establishing new regulatory categories for tobacco alternatives. It banned sales to minors, restricted use in public spaces, and prohibited the sale of oral tobacco products.

And in Moscow, opposition forces are not fighting to liberalize, but to tighten restrictions. On July 6th, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) proposed a bill directing the government to create a blacklist of prohibited flavorings and additives for both nicotine and nicotine-free vapes. The party’s undeclared goal, according to its leader Leonid Slutsky, is “a total ban as soon as conditions allow.”

The Countries Where “No” Still Echoes

Not everyone bowed to the logic of total control. In Sofia, the Bulgarian Parliament rejected a bill that sought to apply the same restrictions on vaping as on traditional tobacco, even in open-air spaces like playgrounds.

In Bern, the Swiss government passed a law banning nicotine advertising in areas accessible to minors, both physical and digital. However, ads are still permitted in subscription-based publications with at least a 98% adult readership and on online platforms that have adequate age verification measures in place. Its enforcement will depend on a possible public referendum—a rare democratic twist in this policy space that could either derail or legitimize the new legal framework.

In Vaduz, Liechtenstein’s government approved a motion on July 1st to raise the minimum purchase age for tobacco and vaping products from 16 to 18. The reform—an amendment to the Youth and Childhood Act—will be debated in Parliament in September. The proposal also redefines the legal concept of "tobacco product" to include electronic cigarettes.

Beyond Europe’s Radar: Cracks and Resistance

In Kathmandu on June 28th, the Patan High Court disrupted the official narrative. It issued an order forcing the government to suspend its ban on vape imports and sales, arguing that ministerial circulars lacked sufficient legal grounds. The legal battle remains open—a crack through which the legitimacy of vaping might slip.

In Australia, the measures are extreme: flavors are banned (except for mint, menthol, and tobacco), nicotine is capped at 50 mg/mL, tanks are limited to 5 mL, and packaging is restricted to matte gray or white—no more than three tones, in a pharmaceutical style. Since July 1st, pharmacies have been the only legal sales points, and any noncompliant products have been removed from shelves.

In Kyrgyzstan, a law banning all forms of vaping—sales, imports, and use, even in smoke-free zones—took effect on July 1st. It was reinforced on July 4th by an executive order that locks down the country’s borders against such products.

Lasts an Uncomfortable Question: Who Are We Really Protecting?

The dominant narrative invokes childhood and adolescence. But the collateral damage is adult—tangible and urgent. Millions trying to quit smoking now find their alternatives becoming illegal, unreachable, or stigmatized. The irony thickens: the products that don’t kill are banned; the ones that do remain available, taxed, and tolerated.

Governments around the world are reviving or tightening restrictions on alternative nicotine products, ranging from total bans to partial prohibitions targeting flavors or disposable formats. By adopting policies driven more by inherited fears than by scientific evidence, these initiatives call into question the current tobacco control paradigm—and the very future of a public health strategy grounded in harm reduction.

Uruguay and Bulgaria Backtrack: Blanket Bans Without Nuance

On May 31 in Montevideo, Uruguay’s executive branch repealed Decrees 87/021 and 282/022, reinstating the ban on the sale and import of heated tobacco products, along with the reintroduction of plain packaging for cigarettes. With this move, Uruguay steps away from international experiences where heated tobacco has served as a potential bridge toward less harmful forms of consumption.

Just days later, on June 3, Bulgaria’s Parliamentary Committee on Economic Policy and Innovation approved a bill banning the sale, use, and advertising of all electronic cigarettes. This all-or-nothing approach deliberately ignores the risk gradient between smoking and vaping.

Lithuania, Israel, and Mexico: Cracking Down on Flavors and Disposables

On June 2, Lithuania's Chair of the Addiction Prevention Commission, Saulius Čaplinskas, introduced a bill to ban the sale of disposable devices, set to take effect in November 2026.

Meanwhile, on June 3, Israel announced its intent to ban both disposable devices and flavored e-liquids. While concerns about youth access to appealing products are valid, these policies overlook more balanced regulatory alternatives, such as limiting advertising or restricting sales to specialized venues, that could provide safer, more controlled environments.

In Mexico, a June 4 report from the National Addiction Commission recommended banning additives and flavors in tobacco, extending plain packaging requirements to heated tobacco products (HTPs) and vaporizers, and expanding “emission-free zones” to include these devices—a bundle of proposals still lacking a defined legislative roadmap.

Advertising and Public Use

Germany and Switzerland have opted for somewhat more targeted restrictions. On May 31, German Health Minister Nina Warken called on the Länder to align vaping regulations with those governing tobacco use in public spaces.

Shortly after, on June 4, Switzerland’s upper chamber passed two legislative motions: one to ban disposable devices and another to prohibit tobacco and vaping product advertising in media and venues accessible to minors, except in publications where at least 98% of the audience is adult.

In both cases, the strategy aims to reduce the visibility of these products. Yet it exposes a troubling lack of innovation in the face of a rapidly evolving and increasingly sophisticated market.

As Bans Multiply, Greece Opens Consultation

Greece, in contrast, launched a public consultation on May 31—open until June 16—aimed at regulating the sale of heated tobacco and vaping products.

The proposal includes mandatory age verification at all points of sale, a ban on vending machines and cross-border sales, while allowing for domestic e-commerce.

This model, which combines restrictions for minors with a degree of flexibility for adults, offers a potential path toward balance, provided it is backed by rigorous and sustained public education campaigns.

Where Is Global Regulation Headed?

By fragmenting policy into outright bans, partial restrictions, and advertising limits, governments appear to be reacting less to mounting evidence and more to a lingering historical fear—one that nicotine continues to embody in the collective memory.

This regulatory patchwork, even within the European Union, falls short of forming a forward-looking public health strategy. Instead, it reveals a disoriented landscape, uneasy with complexity and all too eager to embrace the shortcut of prohibition.

As science advances in comparing relative risks, many states retreat into binary thinking—approaches that have already failed in the past.

The danger lies not only in what is banned, but in what is left unexamined. Harm reduction demands frameworks capable of recognizing nuance—of distinguishing informed use from vulnerable use, indiscriminate access from intelligent regulation. Without that, what prevails is not protection but abdication: of innovation, of informed debate, and of the increasingly urgent task of shaping drug policies that are more humane, more effective, and more just.

The echo of a single melody resonates from Europe to Asia: governments, in the name of public health, impose increasingly stringent restrictions on alternative nicotine products. Bureaucratic whispers in Paris, parliamentary deliberations in Madrid, decrees in Bucharest, regulations in Jerusalem and Jakarta — all tuned to a regulatory score that seems unchangeable.

Yet beneath this façade of regulatory coherence, deeper tensions stir: the urgent narrative of protecting youth, the latent fear of rising nicotine use, and the political yearning to align with international dictates. And in the background, almost inaudible, lingers the unsettling threat for many: the logic of harm reduction — a strategy that has saved, and could continue to save, thousands of lives, but one that rarely finds a place on the grandiose stage of contemporary public policy.

France: From Nicotine Limits to a “Tobacco-Free Generation”

Starting July 1, the French government will ban smoking in outdoor public spaces frequented by children — beaches, parks, gardens, school surroundings, bus shelters, and sports facilities.

The measure, announced by Minister Catherine Vautrin, imposes a fine of up to 135 euros for violations, arguing that “the right of minors to breathe clean air must prevail.” The exact perimeter around schools will be defined by decree, with the Council of State providing guidance and local municipalities responsible for enforcement. The ban will also cover schools and high schools, aiming to prevent students from smoking near their premises. However, for now, café terraces and the use of electronic cigarettes are excluded from this restriction.

Simultaneously, in Paris, Vautrin announced that the government plans to “lower the permitted nicotine level” in vaping liquids, currently set at 20 mg/ml under the European Union’s Tobacco Products Directive (TPD). According to the minister, the aim is to rely on “scientific and technical advice” to define the details of the measure, which is expected to take effect “before the end of the first half of 2026.”

In parallel, senators from the ruling Renaissance party have introduced a bill to regulate nicotine pouches, setting a limit of 16.6 mg of nicotine per unit, banning sales to minors, prohibiting additives that alter nicotine absorption or suggest energizing properties, requiring graphic health warnings (with the exact format yet to be determined), and forbidding any descriptors that could create “a misleading impression about the product’s characteristics, effects, or risks.”

This legislative move reveals, on one hand, a recognition that alternatives to cigarettes exist with therapeutic potential for adult smokers; on the other, a fear that these same options could fuel the gray market or entice young people. The paradox is evident: while aiming to lower nicotine levels, some critics had already warned back in February 2025 that the government decree was essentially seeking to ban nicotine pouches altogether — a move that, they argued, would only encourage the black market.

Regarding a possible tax increase on tobacco, Vautrin stated that no new hikes are planned, citing concerns about smuggling and the need to support tobacconists in diversifying their business activities.

Looking ahead to the first half of 2026, the government also plans to lower the permitted nicotine levels in vaping products and reduce the number of available flavors. However, the specifics will depend on future scientific and technical recommendations. These measures are part of the National Tobacco Control Program 2023–2027, which pursues the ambitious goal of “freeing an entire generation from tobacco by 2032.”

Anti-tobacco movements had long been demanding concrete action: 1,600 French municipalities, on an experimental basis, extended local bans to around 7,000 outdoor spaces. A survey conducted by the Ligue contre le cancer shows that 62% of French citizens support the expansion of smoke-free areas.

The French regulatory agenda takes an even more radical turn with the initiative of Green Party deputy Nicolas Thierry, who proposes banning the sale of tobacco and heated tobacco products to anyone born on or after January 1, 2014.

Backed by the organization Alliance Against Tobacco (ACT), his proposal aims to create, in effect, a “tobacco-free generation.” Although it has yet to be formally introduced, the initiative pushes traditional boundaries: it’s no longer enough to regulate content or packaging — the goal is to prevent nicotine from ever reaching those who, ideally, will grow up immune to its risks.

Spain: The Fading Colors of Tobacco Packs and the Silent, Heavy Blow Against Vapers

In Madrid, Pedro Gullón, Director General of Public Health at the Ministry of Health, has confirmed that the government is in the “intermediate phase” of a bill that will mandate plain packaging — a measure poised to redraw the landscape of cigarette packs in Spain.

In its initial version, the draft submitted to the European Union in January also sought to ban all flavors other than tobacco in vapes, pouches, and heated herbal products. However, after receiving legal advice, the government decided to temporarily withdraw the plain packaging provision and refocus the reform within the main tobacco control law.

While plain packaging represents a logical step within the prohibitionist tradition of tobacco control — soon to be followed by the elimination of flavors — giving Spain regulatory coherence with countries enforcing stricter measures, its implementation is not without hidden costs: penalizing those smokers who have found in combustion-free alternatives an absolute path to quitting conventional cigarettes.

The Spanish Ministry of Health seems to overlook two pivotal studies led by Abigail Friedman that examine the effects of flavor restrictions on these devices.

The first study (2023) analyzed retail sales data from more than 375 localities and seven U.S. states that implemented permanent restrictions on the sale of flavored ENDS (Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems) devices. By cross-referencing local policies with sales figures, the authors detected a paradoxical effect: for every 0.7 mL ENDS pod that stopped being sold due to flavor restrictions, an additional 15 combustible cigarettes were sold. Moreover, they observed an increase in sales of cigarette brands that are particularly popular among minors.

These findings suggest that the public health benefits from reducing ENDS use could be offset by the rise in traditional cigarette consumption, whose health consequences are well-known and devastating.

An earlier study (2021), also led by Friedman and focused on the ban on flavored e-cigarettes in San Francisco, confirmed a similar phenomenon. Using a difference-in-differences analysis approach, the study showed that, far from decreasing, youth smoking increased in San Francisco compared to areas where no similar restrictions had been implemented.

Additionally, a joint study by the University of Bristol and the UK government agency Office for Health Improvement and Disparities concludes that flavor restrictions could affect smokers and vapers in unforeseen ways, making smoking more appealing than vaping. Nevertheless, the current Spanish administration appears to be moving toward a homogenizing regulatory framework that disregards the most robust and recent scientific evidence.

Taken together, these studies reveal a potential unintended consequence of flavor bans: by limiting access to less harmful nicotine products, restrictive policies may be pushing certain groups, including younger populations, back toward combustible cigarette use —a troubling irony that raises serious questions about the actual effectiveness of these initiatives in reducing harm.

United Kingdom and Scotland: The End of Disposables and the Utopia of a “Smoke-Free Generation”

On June 1, 2025, a ban on the sale of disposable vapes came into effect in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland (see individual links for the specific regulations in each country).

The British government enthusiastically welcomed the measure, citing a clear rationale: to curb the so-called “youth vaping epidemic,” as these devices — affordable and available in a wide range of flavors — had become particularly appealing to teenagers.

On May 21, the Scottish Parliament approved a legislative consent motion allowing the application in Scotland of the provisions contained in the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which includes a future generational ban on tobacco and heated tobacco products. The bill, still under review in the House of Lords, grants the government broad powers to regulate the content, packaging, design, and marketing of all nicotine-containing products.

However, behind the grandiose announcements, scientific data urges a more nuanced view of this supposed “crisis.” The real nicotine market remains firmly in the hands of adults.

In Great Britain, the ratio of adult to youth vapers is overwhelming: eleven adults for every one young person. The gap widens even further when traditional smokers are included. In this context, any serious discussion about youth vaping must be framed within this demographic scale, reminding us that the phenomenon, far from being a youth epidemic, is primarily an adult practice.

Efforts to eradicate youth vaping through prohibitive policies reveal not determination, but rather a naïve view of social reality. Some of these young people, deprived of vaping, will seek refuge in more harmful practices, such as conventional cigarette use or illicit markets. Others may simply be passing through, exploring a fleeting habit they will abandon as quickly as they adopted it.

To what extent is it legitimate to impose severe restrictions on an entire adult population in the name of protecting those who may not even need saving? The issue transcends the boundaries of public health and ventures into deeper territory: that of justice and freedom. Without a transition strategy grounded in harm reduction — for instance, by promoting regulated nicotine vaping — many young adults could be pushed to the fringes of the market, into gray areas where products lack health controls and the risks are, at best, unknown.

Moldova and Bulgaria: Diverging Paths Toward the Regulation of Vaping and Heated Products

In Chișinău, the Moldovan Parliament approved a government bill on May 29 banning the sale of nicotine pouches and flavored heated tobacco products. The initiative also mandates graphic health warnings covering 65% of the packaging. It imposes new restrictions on labeling, public communication, and the use of vaping devices and heated products in public spaces. The bill now awaits either presidential veto or approval; if enacted, the government will have 12 months to issue the corresponding secondary regulations.

Meanwhile, in Sofia, the health committee of the Bulgarian Parliament rejected on April 4 a legislative initiative that sought to extend the restrictions applicable to conventional tobacco to vapes and heated tobacco products in public spaces. The bill, backed by several opposition parties, proposed banning vaping in outdoor areas frequented by minors, such as playgrounds and sports facilities.

Although the committee’s decision was merely advisory, it exposed an internal debate: is it more urgent to protect young people or to preserve a regulated space for adult consumers who have chosen harm reduction?

The dichotomy between Moldova and Bulgaria reveals two opposing visions: one that advocates for comprehensive control, trusting that cutting off all pathways to consumption will be effective; and another that acknowledges the value of preserving less harmful options for adults within strict regulatory frameworks.

In Moldova, the implementation of 65% graphic warnings on packaging stands in stark contrast to Bulgaria’s rejection, illustrating how a small European country can fully embrace the hardline stance of the World Health Organization. However, international experience shows that when prohibition is enacted without offering safe alternatives, consumers tend to revert to conventional cigarettes or migrate toward the fringes of the market, where regulation does not reach and risks increase.

Israel and Iraq: Labels, Bans, and Contradictory Openings

On May 28, Israel’s Knesset, through its Economic Affairs Committee, approved a regulation that will impose graphic warnings covering 75% of the packaging for vapes and tobacco products, including heated tobacco. The figure represents a reduction from the originally proposed 90%, aiming to leave space for branding and ensure that slim cigarettes (cigarras) are not exempt. These new provisions, based on the March 2024 law, will come into effect in June 2026.

Although graphic warnings are a validated tool in public health policy, Israel’s rigid approach leans more toward visually sanctioning the consumer than promoting balanced information on risk reduction. When labeling relies on dramatic images but fails to guide users toward less harmful alternatives, the effect can be paradoxical: consumers, overwhelmed by negative stimuli, may tune out the message and, in some cases, turn to prohibited products through clandestine channels.

In contrast, in Baghdad, the Council of Ministers agreed on May 27 to lift the ban on the import of vapes and heated tobacco products, which had been in place since May 2025 as an amendment to the Tobacco Harm Protection Law. This easing is surprising in the context of a global trend toward increasing regulatory tightening. Iraq’s Ministry of Health itself acknowledged that the total ban did not curb consumption; instead, it drove up prices and encouraged counterfeiting.

Iraq’s decision reopens a window of hope for the harm reduction paradigm: to test, in a challenging environment, whether the controlled introduction of alternatives can indeed reduce the consumption of traditional combustibles.

Indonesia: The Stealth of Communication and Digital Control

In Jakarta, the Ministry of Health is preparing a regulation, set for late 2025, that will restrict digital communication about vapes, relying on a comprehensive framework approved in July 2024. Although the details are still in draft form, the official intent is clear: to limit advertisements, social media promotions, and any messaging that could “glamorize” vaping.

This digital siege on vaping exposes one of the most unsettling paradoxes of contemporary communication: in an environment where access to information should empower citizens, censoring evidence-based messages risks leaving users at the mercy of simplistic and alarmist narratives.

When debate is restricted in open forums, scientific communities, and educational platforms, consumption doesn’t decrease — it merely shifts. Deprived of reliable information, consumers migrate to closed groups and opaque spaces where content circulates without scientific rigor, and myths, half-truths, and misinformation flourish.

Thus, rather than protecting, excessive control weakens: it turns knowledge into contraband and, in doing so, erodes the possibility of an informed public debate on harm reduction and less harmful alternatives.

May: Between Morality and Science

At first glance, these regulations seem disparate: nicotine limits in Paris, generational bans in London, plain packaging in Madrid, graphic warnings in Jerusalem, digital restrictions in Jakarta. Yet when woven together, a common logic emerges: regulate, prohibit, stigmatize.

The shared denominator is a punitive view of nicotine, conceived as a poison that, they insist, “admits no nuance.” But science tells a different story: nicotine, isolated from combustion, is considerably less harmful; its primary risk lies in its potential for dependence, not in causing cancer.

When a state arbitrarily decides to lower nicotine levels, ban flavors, formats, and advertising — and does so without establishing a robust program of education, counseling, and health supervision — it creates a vacuum.

And in that vacuum, proliferate sellers of adulterated pouches, contraband liquids with toxic levels, and clandestine devices of dubious origin. Worse still, many users, stripped of their transition tools, end up returning to the deadliest enemy they once sought to leave behind — the conventional cigarette.

Paris, Madrid, London, Chișinău, Sofia, Jerusalem, Baghdad, and Jakarta draw a map of prohibitions and restrictions that, though seemingly diverse, share a conviction: that controlling nicotine is akin to exercising social control.

But nicotine is no monolithic enemy; bodies, personal histories, and socioeconomic environments shape its effects. Ignoring this complexity is akin to turning a deaf ear to decades of interdisciplinary research that implores for responses that are situated, ethical, and scientifically informed.

The path, we know, is not simple. It requires acknowledging that for each adult smoker, nicotine can be both a poison and a relief: poison when inhaled through the fumes of combustion; relief when administered without fire or tar.

Defending this perspective means embracing complexity, compassion, and the possibility of a health redemption that does not drive users underground. It means recognizing that zero-tolerance vapor policies do not achieve their goals; instead, they push the most vulnerable into unsafe, marginal markets.

Perhaps the greatest lesson is learning to hear the whisper of evidence amid the clamor of public morality. Because if we persist in demonizing everything that carries the scent of nicotine, we risk closing the only possible exit for those who need it most. And every shuttered exit translates into lives mortgaged by preventable diseases.

In the previous installment, we traced the most significant events from the early weeks of May 2025—a month marked by announcements, reforms, and narrative battles over the future of tobacco and nicotine control. In this second part, we turn our gaze to the close of the month, when tensions sharpen, discourse grows more polarized, and certain decisions begin to solidify, revealing not only what is being banned but what each society is ultimately willing to allow in the name of health.

Europe is navigating a regulatory crossroads that can no longer be concealed beneath the veneer of legal technicalities. What’s at stake is not merely how laws are written, but for whom they are written, and with what principles collective care is prioritized.

From Brussels to Warsaw, governments face a long-delayed and urgent question: how to respond—sensibly and responsibly—to the unstoppable rise of new nicotine products—vapes, heated tobacco systems, oral pouches—without defaulting to prohibitionist reflexes or hollow rhetoric?

The spread of these technologies has laid bare an ideological fracture that runs not only through institutions but also through the very core of modern public health. On one side, those who champion bans as a display of moral resolve and sacred protection of the young; on the other, those, grounded in science and decades of hard-won experience, who argue that harm reduction is not surrender, but a sober reckoning with the complexity of human behavior and consumption pathways.

At the heart of the dilemma lies an uncomfortable truth: the suffering of those who cannot quit smoking can no longer be rendered invisible, pushed to the margins of health discourses that forget that, before numbers, there are bodies—and before statistics, there are lives.

A Fragmented Bloc Facing the Challenge of Innovation

On May 26, fifteen European Union member states—including Germany, France, Spain, and the Czech Republic—called on the European Commission to revise the Tobacco Taxation Directive without further delay. In a joint letter, they warned that “the current scope and provisions are insufficient to address the challenges of the European tobacco market,” which is increasingly strained by the rise of alternative products that evade traditional tax frameworks.

But the letter reveals more than just a tax concern: it reflects a growing sense that Europe’s regulatory framework has become outdated in the face of innovations that evolve faster than politics can keep up. In this mismatch, the risk goes beyond tax evasion—it’s the deeper disconnect that occurs when institutional design clings to the past and forgets that public health is not defended by chasing shadows, but by understanding how consumption reinvents itself.

The fragmentation of the European bloc in the face of this challenge is not merely administrative—it’s conceptual. And it leaves millions of citizens trapped in a regulatory limbo where the new is punished not for its proven harm, but for its power to unsettle the status quo.

Just hours after the call to review tobacco taxation, the Netherlands and Belgium revived an initiative first launched in March 2024: a joint letter, initially signed by twelve member states, urging the European Commission to mandate plain packaging, ban flavors, and impose a uniform nicotine cap on vapes and oral pouches.

The gesture is neither incidental nor trivial. Amid a regulatory landscape in crisis, some governments appear to seek normative uniformity as a way to regain control they feel they've lost.

Yet the drive toward uniformity is not always rooted in evidence—it often stems from fear: fear of technological uncertainty, fear of losing authority over bodies, fear of moral judgment cast upon any policy that doesn’t ban the new. Beneath the rhetoric of protection—legitimate in its intent—lurks an authoritarian temptation: to strip citizens of their capacity for discernment, as if public health could only be preserved through obedience, rather than through understanding.

On May 27, policymakers from both countries—Dutch State Secretary Vincent Karremans and Belgian Minister Frank Vandenbroucke—met with EU officials to take things a step further: turning their March petition into concrete proposals within Brussels’ legislative machinery.

It was a coordinated move, though not necessarily a coherent one. Two fronts, united by the urgency of the moment, but divided in diagnosis and direction. One—focused on fiscal architecture—seeks to update tax frameworks in light of a reality that has rendered past criteria obsolete. The other, rooted in a moral architecture, pushes to neutralize products visually and sensorially, as if the issue were the color of the packaging rather than the absence of a mature public debate on the right to choose less harmful alternatives.

This fork in the road reveals a deeper dilemma: whether regulation should accompany the transformation of consumption or punish its shift into new forms that unsettle the reflexes of traditional politics.

France Between National Prohibition and Community Disagreement

While calls for a coordinated response multiply in Brussels, Paris is moving ahead on its own. The French government has notified the European Commission of a decree intended to ban the sale, import, and possession of nicotine pouches within its territory.

This isn’t merely a technical divergence. The move—blunt, symbolic signals a widening political rift between national ambitions and the shared commitments of the single market.

The backlash came swiftly. Sweden—the birthplace of these products—along with Romania, Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, Italy, and the Czech Republic, objected that the measure would “seriously harm the free movement of goods” within the Union. But beyond the treaty clauses, the episode highlights a deeper fracture: Europe’s growing inability to speak with one voice when the issue isn’t traditional tobacco, but its technological and cultural reconfiguration.

Meanwhile, on May 21, a deputy from La République En Marche introduced a bill in the National Assembly that, while stopping short of a full ban, proposes strict regulation of nicotine pouches: flavors would be limited to mint, menthol, and fruit; health warnings would cover 30% of the packaging; all advertising would be banned; sales to minors prohibited; and nicotine content capped at 16.6 mg per gram.

France appears torn between two impulses—not mutually exclusive, but certainly revealing: one of absolute control, which seeks to eliminate risk by outlawing its very existence; the other, of meticulous regulatory order, deeply distrustful of both the market and individual judgment. In both cases, the result is the same: a state that acts more from mistrust than pedagogy, more from symbolism than efficacy.

New National Trenches in Eastern and Northern Europe

As the European debate becomes tangled in letters, notifications, and counterproposals that rarely escape the page, some countries have chosen to move forward alone, digging new regulatory trenches at the national level. In Warsaw, the Lower House passed a bill limiting nicotine concentration in pouches to 20 mg per gram and banning all forms of advertising. The measure, already sent to the Senate, would take effect two weeks after publication, with a six-month grace period for specific provisions.

The message is clear: in the face of Europe’s regulatory void, legislative self-determination becomes the only viable course of action, yet also a political statement. When Brussels hesitates, capitals act, even at the cost of fragmentation. Today’s Poland—like Denmark a few weeks ago—seems to say that waiting for consensus is no excuse for inaction.

In the distant north, in Iceland, the debate has taken on a tone as unexpected as it is revealing. MP Halla Hrund Logadóttir announced she will introduce a bill this fall to subject nicotine pouches to the same restrictions as traditional tobacco.

Her motivation reflects a certain ambiguity: on the one hand, she seeks to curb the rising use of these products among young people, which, according to preliminary data, may reach 30% of Icelandic teenagers. Yet, on the other hand, she inserts a regulatory equivalence into the public discourse between substances with substantially different risks. This equation not only erases scientific nuance but also muddles the health message by replacing precision with symbolic impact.

In contexts where legal voids become commercial havens and inadvertent magnets for minors, regulatory urgency often emerges as a practical and tactical necessity, often accompanied by moral lessons. But it is also—perhaps more importantly—a symbolic assertion of authority.

The problem is that in the rush to close gaps, there’s a risk of legislating from alarm rather than understanding. And so the question arises: are we building informed and effective public policy, or merely erecting a moral levee that reassures politics without necessarily protecting people?

There is a fine line between protection and overprotection, and crossing it is no small matter. It can mean replacing the pedagogy of risk with a logic of punishment—one that rarely deters, but almost always alienates—and doubly punishes those who most need support.

Latin American and Asian Contrasts

The battle over control of new nicotine products knows neither borders nor ideological consensus. It unfolds across diverse latitudes but raises shared questions: How do we regulate what is still being understood? How do we legislate without repeating the mistakes of the past?

In Santiago, Chile, a law that took effect on May 20 marks a turning point. Vaporizers and heated tobacco products (HTPs) are now legally treated as conventional cigarettes. The law bans sales to minors, restricts their use in public spaces, and prohibits all advertising on radio, television, and within 400 meters of schools and health centers. An additional decree mandates health warnings: 20% on vapes and 50% on tobacco products.

The institutional message is unambiguous: normalize their legal treatment to neutralize their cultural and commercial appeal. Yet the strategy reveals a deeper dilemma: Is it appropriate to apply a regulatory framework designed for a historically different harm to new technologies? Can a legacy control model respond effectively to a landscape of accelerated innovation, where symbolism matters as much as chemistry?

Chile is not just regulating products; it is producing meaning about risk, youth, and the authority of the state. What’s at stake goes beyond public health; it’s a contest over who gets to redefine the thresholds of the permissible.

Across the Pacific, a leap toward total criminalization. In Hanoi, the approach is different—and far more radical. The Ministry of Health has proposed extending the ban in place since 2005, which currently covers importation and sale, also to include the possession and use of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products. If enacted, Vietnam would become one of the few countries in the world to criminalize not only supply but also demand.

The proposal, expected to be reviewed by the executive in the second quarter of 2025 ahead of parliamentary debate, doesn’t just aim to redraw regulatory lines—it seeks to erase them altogether. Here, the goal isn’t to navigate the complex tension between consumption and protection, liberty and health, but to eliminate it outright. The logic is stark: if it can’t be controlled, it must be eradicated.

Yet this logic—efficient in form, severe in substance—raises unsettling questions. What role remains for the individual in a public health policy that treats use as a crime? What kind of pedagogy is possible when the state chooses punishment over understanding? Instead of developing harm-reduction tools or frameworks for safe access, Vietnam appears to be betting on a pedagogy of expulsion, where risk isn’t managed but banned by decree, as if that could make it disappear.

The End of a Generation in the Indian Ocean

Perhaps the most radical decision hasn’t come from a regional power or a European capital, but from a small archipelago in the middle of the Indian Ocean. On May 21, Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu ratified an amendment to the Tobacco Control Act that sets a global precedent: no one born on or after January 1, 2007, will ever be allowed to purchase tobacco products at any point in their life.

With this measure, the Maldives becomes one of the first countries in the world to implement what’s known as the “generational ban fully”—a strategy aimed at breaking the intergenerational chain of smoking not through campaigns or incentives, but through a sharp legal cutoff in time.

Hailed by some public health advocates as a visionary and far-reaching act, the policy has also drawn fierce criticism from the harm-reduction field, which views it as an extreme experiment—more moral than pragmatic—and rife with unintended consequences, including the progressive stigmatization of consumers and the inevitable expansion of black markets.

Caught between the dream of a tobacco-free generation and the persistent reality of informal economies, the Maldives is making a bold wager—one that is both symbol and warning: a vision of the future that raises not just the question of what risks we seek to avoid, but what forms of control we are willing to normalize in the name of health.

South Asia Deploys Its Full Public Health Arsenal

In Kathmandu, Nepal’s Ministry of Health issued a measure on May 21 as forceful as it is symbolic: beginning August 17, 100% of the front and back surfaces of all tobacco packaging must be covered with graphic health warnings. With this move, Nepal not only strengthens its regulatory framework but also reaffirms the pioneering stance it took in 2015, when it became one of the first countries in the world to mandate high-impact pictograms.

In a region where consumption rates remain alarmingly high—and where regulatory authority contends with a robust informal economy and ongoing institutional pressures—Kathmandu is betting on a strategy of visual saturation. The aim is clear: to neutralize tobacco’s aspirational narrative from the packaging itself, to dismantle its aesthetic, and to strip it of its symbolic power as an object of desire.

But this pedagogy of visual shock, which operates through impact rather than understanding, also has its limits. What happens when graphic warnings stop triggering aversion and become part of the everyday backdrop? How long can visual terror serve as public policy once the cultural environment has normalized the risk?

The measure is bold, no doubt. But it also raises a vital question for the entire Global South: Is it enough to flood consumption with images, or must we rebuild—from the ground up-the narratives that sustain it?

Washington: Steady at the Regulatory Helm

While much of the world scrambles—urgently or inconsistently—to rethink its policies on the new generation of nicotine products, the United States has chosen to stay the course. On May 19, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) appointed Bret Koplow as acting director of its Center for Tobacco Products. With this decision, the agency reaffirms its commitment to institutional continuity in enforcing the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act—a law that, despite criticism for its slow evaluation of reduced-risk products, has laid the foundation for the U.S. regulatory model.

In a global landscape increasingly fractured—with generational bans, visual saturation, criminalization of use, and the rise of gray markets—Washington, surprisingly, represents a form of balance: not without flaws, not without delays, but grounded in the belief that regulatory coherence is, in itself, a way to protect.

At the uncertain crossroads between public health and the politics of fear, nicotine products are emerging as the new battleground in a Europe oscillating between health prudence and prohibitionist impulses. This is not merely about regulating substances but about defining what a society understands as harm, freedom, and individual responsibility.

Under the rhetoric of youth protection, governments across various latitudes deploy strategies that sometimes confuse good intentions with actual effectiveness, relegating the science of relative risk to a secondary role in the face of moral urgencies. This ongoing struggle—echoing in debates over packaging, licensing, registration, and chemical thresholds—reveals to what extent regulatory decisions are not mere technical acts but mirrors reflecting each country's fears, values, and contradictions.

Conflict Map | Europe Facing the Nicotine Dilemma

On May 7, the Danish government announced that its upcoming National Cancer Strategy will include measures to restrict or reduce the number of establishments authorized to sell tobacco and nicotine pouches. The proposal also contemplates increasing licensing fees, limiting opening hours, and concentrating sales in specialized stores.

Although the stated goal is to protect young people, the absence of a relative risk analysis casts a shadow: could this policy push adult consumers toward unregulated channels, reversing the progress made?

On the same day, in the Netherlands, an amendment to the Tobacco Products Act was published in the Official Gazette, imposing mandatory registration for retailers of tobacco and nicotine products. Existing businesses will have six months to formalize their registration, while new ones must register before starting sales. This measure, aimed at improving traceability, faces a crucial challenge: its success will depend on an agile implementation capable of balancing health control with the need to avoid hindering access to less harmful alternatives.

On May 7, the Polish Parliament's Health Committee unanimously approved a bill to regulate nicotine pouches. The bill bans messages and sales to minors, prohibits remote sales, sets a maximum threshold of 20 mg/g of nicotine, and requires 30% health warnings on packaging.

Regulatory transparency is undoubtedly a step forward, but the effectiveness of such restrictions depends on their integration into a comprehensive harm reduction strategy. A threshold that is too severe, without guided access pathways, could discourage products effective for smoking cessation, thus undermining their original purpose.

In Italy, the Customs and Monopolies Agency confirmed on May 9 the extension of text warnings and child-proof packaging requirements—originally designed in 2023 for the RED MUULE brand—to all nicotine pouches marketed in the country. This expansion strengthens child protection but risks imposing disproportionate burdens on manufacturers and retailers by applying an indiscriminate approach that fails to differentiate product risk profiles.

On April 24, the European Commission objected to Norway's regulation mandating plain packaging for vaping devices, limiting colors to black, white, silver gray, or Pantone 448 C. Additionally, the regulation banned informative inserts, contradicting Article 20(4) of the Tobacco Products Directive, which requires mandatory information on packaging. Brussels urged Oslo to adjust its regulations to ensure consumers' right to receive key health warnings, thus highlighting the tension between regulatory aesthetics and the need for access to vital public health information.

The Mirage of Prohibition: Resistance to Total Bans

The debate over absolute bans peaked in France, where on May 7, Romania and Greece submitted detailed opinions against a bill aiming to prohibit the sale, import, and possession of nicotine pouches.

Both nations warned that a total ban would not only create trade barriers within the single market but could also trigger a boomerang effect in public health terms: forcing many adults back to combustible tobacco, known to be far more harmful.

In Spain, on May 12, the European Commission published comments from six Member States—Romania, Czechia, Greece, Italy, Croatia, and Sweden—regarding the draft Royal Decree limiting nicotine to 0.99 mg per pouch and banning flavors in vaporizers and pouches, including menthol.

These objections converge on a common diagnosis: the proposed restrictions pose obstacles to the single market and lack proportionality. The standstill period to resolve these discrepancies will end on July 28, leaving the outcome of a regulation that could redefine access to nicotine products in Spain hanging in the balance.

Strategies in Dispute: From Prohibitionism to Pragmatism

Regulatory volatility is evident in Lithuania, where Lina Šukytė-Korsakė, Chair of the Seimas Health Committee, announced she would present a "major bill" to regulate disposable vapes on May 12.

This initiative comes after a motion proposing their total ban was withdrawn in February. The change in direction reflects tensions between the need for health control and the search for pragmatic solutions capable of balancing public health with consumption realities.

On May 9, Indonesian Deputy Minister of Industry Faisol Reza revealed internal debates over withdrawing a project to impose plain packaging on all nicotine products, including pouches and heated tobacco products (THP).

The measure, which faced cross-pressures from the health sector and manufacturing interests, illustrates how tobacco control policy often becomes a battleground between economic interests and public health objectives.

Punitive Approaches: From Total Bans to Environmental Responsibility

The trend towards punitive regulations manifests with particular harshness in Iraq. On May 5, the Parliament’s Health and Environment Committee approved an article in the Tobacco Harm Protection Act, banning the import, sale, marketing, manufacture, and use of vapes.

The measure also prohibits all forms of commercial communication and sets 18 as the minimum legal age for consumption. Although the regulation's declared intention is to curb the youth vaping epidemic, it fails to consider the principle of relative risk, thus risking pushing consumers toward even more harmful products.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, New South Wales (Australia) offers a more nuanced perspective. On April 9, a law was enacted empowering the state government to require extended producer responsibility schemes for manufacturers, covering the use, collection, and recycling of vaping devices.

While the measure prioritizes environmental sustainability, it also opens the door to specific regulations to minimize harm and waste without undermining the effectiveness of vaping as a smoking cessation tool.

Regulating to Transform, Not to Prohibit into the Shadows

Beyond specific provisions, the underlying question is simple yet profoundly uncomfortable: Can regulation save lives without removing freedoms? The answer does not lie in absolute bans or punitive gestures that seek to solve through force what requires nuance.

Harm reduction is a pedagogy of complexity: it demands acknowledging that not all risks are equal and that health efficacy does not always align with political correctness. Between the temptation to prohibit everything and the genuine need to protect, Europe—and the world—faces a long-term ethical decision: to regulate in order to transform, not to banish into the shadows what does not disappear by decree.

As scientists accumulate evidence about lower-risk alternatives, lawmakers, bound by historical inertia and economic and social pressures, draft uncertain maps of bans, regulations, and more bans.

From the chilly streets of Helsinki to the crowded corridors of Hong Kong, an invisible battle unfolds. Less visible than trade wars or climate treaties, but just as decisive for the future of public health: Is it about protecting public health, disciplining bodies, or preserving the power to decide who deserves to be saved?

Finland and Spain: Regulations on the Edge of a Ban

In Finland, the Committee on Social Affairs and Health approved a bill that bans all flavors in nicotine pouches except menthol and mint, sets a nicotine limit of 16.6 mg/g, restricts online sales and sales to minors, and strengthens both the licensing system for retailers and the mandatory inclusion of health warnings on packaging.

In Spain, a draft Royal Decree upholds the flavor ban on these pouches. It imposes a maximum nicotine limit of 0.99 mg per unit—a threshold that would amount to a "death by decree," given that no product currently on the market meets such a standard, thus effectively enacting a sector-wide ban.

This proposal, submitted to the TRIS system, is under a standstill period until July 28, 2025. In response, the Swedish Government filed a formal objection with the European Commission, arguing that these restrictions would exclude "all relevant products" and criticizing the lack of consideration for less drastic regulatory alternatives, while also highlighting Sweden’s success in reducing combustible tobacco use by offering lower-risk products.

Belgium and Slovenia: The Flavor of Hardline Discipline

In Belgium, Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke is considering restricting vaping flavors, exploring the possibility of authorizing only tobacco flavor—or, at most, menthol as a minimal concession—to avoid the “flavor trap” that attracts young people to vaping.

Meanwhile, in Slovenia, new regulations took effect on April 24, establishing a positive list of just 16 permitted ingredients in vaping liquids, effectively banning all non-tobacco flavors. Both initiatives highlight a persistent dilemma: how to balance the appeal of flavors—which help traditional smokers transition to vaping—against the fear of building a “bridge” to a new generation of users.

Estonia: The Seal of Health Orthodoxy on Heated Tobacco Products

On April 23, Estonia’s Riigikogu approved an amendment to the Tobacco Act that transposes the EU directive banning flavors in heated tobacco products. The new law prohibits all flavors and imposes strict requirements for both product labeling and prior notification, with the measures set to take effect on January 31, 2026. According to a report by Postimees, the vote ended with 68 in favor, 7 against, and one abstention. The law includes fines of up to €32,000 for noncompliance.

United Kingdom: The Generation That Won’t Light Its First Cigarette (At Least, Legally)

On April 23, the United Kingdom’s House of Lords gave second reading approval to the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which will prohibit the sale of tobacco, including heated tobacco products, to anyone born on or after January 1, 2009.

The bill also grants the government broad powers to regulate the content, design, packaging, and marketing of nicotine products, marking a decisive step toward the political goal of a “smoke-free generation” by 2030.

The initiative now moves to the committee stage, where amendments focusing on the impact on youth and the potential introduction of a pre-market registration system for manufacturers will be debated.

Hong Kong: Public Spaces Without Vapor—or Mercy

On April 25, the Hong Kong government published the Tobacco Control Legislation (Amendment) Bill 2025, which, if approved by the Legislative Council on April 30, will ban the possession and use of vapes and heated tobacco products (HTPs) in public spaces starting April 30, 2026.

The proposal includes fines of up to HK$3,000 for violations and toughens penalties for smoking in restricted areas. It also introduces mandatory labeling and official seals on every pack of taxed cigarettes, strengthening traceability and enforcement mechanisms.

April 2025 became the silent battleground for two visions of the future: one where nicotine is an unqualified enemy to be eradicated, and another where science—with all its discomforts and complexities—suggests less absolute paths—perhaps slower, but undeniably more human.

The stubborn resistance to change and the urgent need to rethink tobacco control strategies in light of the latest evidence transcend both geographical and ideological borders. In the end, what’s truly at stake isn’t just a public health policy: it’s the ability of our systems to listen to those who don’t make the headlines, to admit that public health cannot survive on dogma, nor endure the cost of its own silence.

Amid the constant hum of institutional machinery turning across Europe, Asia, and Latin America, a silent yet relentless current takes on a disturbing shape: the normalization of criminalizing innovation in nicotine delivery.

Where public health should be grounded in the latest scientific evidence and attuned to the complexity of social contexts, what emerges instead is a prohibitionist logic — often driven more by moral panic than by empirical understanding.

Governments that should lead a transition toward more humane and realistic health models are instead building walls against technologies that could save millions of lives.

The enemy is no longer just the traditional cigarette — that lethal artifact responsible, according to the World Health Organization, for over eight million deaths a year — but also the very tools designed to help people move away from it.

A paradox takes root: what could reduce harm is punished as harshly as what causes it.

Poland: The Taste of Repression

On March 17, 2025, Poland’s Ministry of Health confirmed its intent to propose a bill banning disposable vapes and restricting non-tobacco flavors in nicotine pouches. The initiative is expected to reach the Council of Ministers in the year's third quarter.

The draft marks a regressive turn from what could have been a balanced and sensible regulatory framework. In late 2024, the same government advanced legislation to regulate nicotine pouches, and restrictions on flavors were ultimately removed after pressure from more moderate ministers. Now, that same restraint is replaced by a prohibitionist reflex: what was once debated is censored.

The measure deliberately ignores a key fact: Flavors are neither a frivolous luxury nor a trap for children. They are vital for thousands of adults trying to leave behind combustible tobacco. By banning them, the state does not protect vulnerable consumers — it drives them back toward the only product that remains constantly available: the cigarette.

Paraguay: Regulation in the Shadows

Half a world away, on March 18, Paraguay’s Chamber of Deputies approved a bill introduced by liberal MP Luis Federico Franco to regulate vaping. While not an outright ban, the bill imposes a dense web of restrictions that suffocate its viability.

Tabled initially in August 2023, the legislation includes:

• Mandatory 60% graphic health warnings;

• Ban on any sensory descriptors — “fruit,” “caramel,” “chocolate,” etc.;

• Nicotine limit of 20 mg/ml;

• Online sales prohibition;

• Mandatory retail licensing;

• Ban on additives such as vitamins or stimulants;

• Vaping is prohibited in closed public spaces or the presence of others;

• Extended producer responsibility for post-consumer waste management.

The bill now goes to the Senate, and if passed, government agencies will have 90 days to issue implementing regulations.

At first glance, it may seem like a reasonable attempt at control. But in practice, it builds an invisible wall — a system that chokes without banning outright.

The restrictions risk discouraging adult users seeking safer alternatives while pushing legitimate retailers out of the market. The door creaks open for the illicit trade, which already dominates much of the continent.

Instead of crafting intelligent policy distinguishing between harm and risk, adult and youth access, Paraguay seems more concerned with punishment than prevention.

Luxembourg: The Ban Disguised as Regulation

Luxembourg doesn’t ban with words — it bans with numbers. And it does so with surgical precision.

On March 11, the government notified the EU of a draft law that would impose a nicotine cap of 0.048 mg per pouch — so low it would effectively remove all existing products from the market.

However, the bill goes further, introducing harsh restrictions on labeling, commercial communication, and health warnings — sometimes exceeding what the EU Tobacco Products Directive (EC TRIS database) requires.

The European Commission, Greece, and Sweden were quick to respond. They deemed the measure “disproportionate,” warning it would exclude “all relevant products from the market” and violate the principles of the single market.

Greece stated that the proposal “hinders the functioning of the internal market,” while Sweden questioned why less restrictive measures had not been considered.

The Commission also reminded Luxembourg that graphic health warnings, as proposed, only apply to smoked tobacco — not to nicotine pouches — and that this legal distinction must be upheld.

The standstill for comments has been extended until June 10, leaving room for further legal, scientific, and political objections.

However, the issue goes far beyond technical regulatory details. Luxembourg is attempting to ban a product without saying it aloud, using technical thresholds as a veto tool.

The product isn't outlawed — it’s made unviable. In doing so, under the cloak of legality, access to lower-risk alternatives for adults is silently cut off, without offering any real cessation policy in return.

Thailand: Prohibition by Inertia

On March 20, Thailand’s Parliament debated a report by a special committee assigned to explore regulatory options for e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products.

The confidential report laid out three paths: reinforce the current ban, regulate only heated tobacco, or legalize both under strict controls. But the outcome was unequivocal: all forms of legalization were rejected.

The rationale—repeated like bureaucratic scripture—was familiar: “health risks,” “youth access,” and “enforcement difficulties.”

But behind the rhetoric lies another truth: fear has displaced evidence as the foundation of public health policy.

By choosing immobility, Thailand entrenches a profoundly contradictory status quo. While lower-risk products remain banned, combustible cigarettes — which are directly responsible for respiratory disease, cardiovascular harm, and millions of preventable deaths — remain legal, accessible, and normalized.

Few paradoxes in public health are more violent than denying adults a less harmful alternative in the name of symbolic protection, thus perpetuating actual harm.

Germany vs. Europe: Rational Skepticism

In December 2024, the EU Council recommended expanding smoke-free zones and restricting vaping and heated tobacco use, even in outdoor spaces.

Germany pushed back. The Bundesrat, its upper house, sent a letter raising concerns about the reliability of the data and the unintended consequences of such a broad recommendation — particularly for the hospitality sector and public life.

On March 17, the European Commission replied that the recommendations are non-binding and based on assessments by SCHEER (Commission’s Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks) and the World Health Organisation.

However, in the current political climate, non-binding is hardly a safeguard. Across the EU, many “recommendations” become law without meaningful public debate or proper social impact evaluation.

This time, Germany chose rational skepticism — an uncomfortable stance in a Europe that too often confuses precaution with dogma and risks closing down the civic and scientific space where the future of public health should be debated.

United States: Waste Yes, Product Also

On March 17, in New Jersey, three Democratic senators introduced a bill that took an unusual approach: regulate without banning, hold industry accountable without demonizing the tool.

The proposal requires e-cigarette manufacturers to join or create a producer responsibility organization (New Jersey State Legislature) to present a five-year plan for managing post-consumer e-cigarette waste.

Here, the logic is not moralistic — it’s environmental. The problem isn’t the product itself, but what happens after use. Regulation is driven by shared responsibility, not punishment.

At a time when many governments reach for blunt prohibitions, New Jersey offers a different path: making the industry responsible without criminalizing innovation.

This is a reminder that wise, balanced policy is possible—one that protects health, the environment, and individual choice.

March in Motion: Control With Nuance

While some countries tighten the screws to the point of suffocation, others choose more measured, precise regulation.

• On March 11, the Netherlands approved a bill requiring mandatory registration of all nicotine product retailers under the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA).

• On March 19, the UAE adopted new standards for nicotine pouches: 20 mg per unit, 30% warning labels, and a ban on harmful additives. The rules take effect July 29.

• On March 24, Malaysia postponed the enforcement of its ban on the retail display of vapes, pushing it from April to October 2025.

These are small but meaningful steps — showing that it is possible to regulate without extinguishing, to protect without suffocating.

The Future Can’t Wait

Now more than ever, we need proportionate, evidence-based, and rational regulation.
Not because we want to promote nicotine, but because we have an ethical obligation to reduce harm in a world where cigarettes continue to kill.

The tobacco harm reduction paradigm is not a fringe idea. It is a health strategy backed by decades of empirical evidence. Applying it to nicotine is not heresy — it is historical consistency.

Recent history has already shown us:
Prohibition saves no one.
Science does.

AFRICA

January 15 – Ivory Coast

Ivory Coast: Government adopts decree extending public place smoking ban to vaping and THP

The Ivorian Council of Ministers adopted a Decree (not available online) that expands the current ban on smoking combustible tobacco products in public places to include “new tobacco products,” a category encompassing vaping devices and heated tobacco products (HTPs).
What happened in January? Check out the new and impactful regulations on e-cigarettes and nicotine.

AMERICAS

January 13 – United States (Indiana and Nebraska)

US-Indiana: Bill proposes generational ban on tobacco and nicotine product sales

A Republican member of the Indiana State Senate introduced a bill that would ban the sale of tobacco and nicotine products to anyone born on or after June 30, 2004. The measure has been sent to the Senate Committee on Health and Provider Services for study; it would then require approval by the full Senate, the General Assembly (lower house), and the governor’s signature to become law.

US-Nebraska: Bill introduced to regulate products containing nicotine analogs as tobacco and nicotine products

A Republican member of Nebraska’s unicameral legislature presented a bill subjecting products containing nicotine analogs to the same regulatory framework as tobacco and nicotine products. It defines analogs as substances with a chemical structure or effect on the central nervous system “substantially similar to or greater than that of nicotine.” If approved by the entire legislature and signed by the governor, it would take effect on January 1, 2026.

January 15 – United States (New York)

US-New York: Bill proposes banning the sale of tobacco and nicotine products containing WS-3

A Democratic New York State Senate member introduced a bill banning the sale of tobacco and nicotine products that contain WS-3 (N-Ethyl-p-menthane-3-carboxamide). Notably, the bill does not regulate synthetic cooling agents such as WS-23. The initiative has been referred to the Senate’s Assembly Committee and would require approval by the full Senate, the State Assembly, and the governor to become law. (source)

January 16 – United States (Federal and Massachusetts)

US-Federal: FDA opens consultations on proposed rule limiting nicotine in cigarettes to non-addictive levels

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released a Proposed Rule limiting the maximum nicotine content in combustible tobacco products (excluding HTPs) to “0.70 milligrams (mg) of nicotine per gram of total tobacco.” Under the proposal, the reduction would take effect immediately rather than gradually. The public consultation will remain open until September 15, 2025, and the FDA will also refer the proposal to the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee while considering “additional opportunities for public engagement.” If approved, the FDA suggests the rule become effective two years after the publication of its final version.

US-Federal: FDA authorizes nicotine pouch marketing – the first official marketing approval for this product category

The FDA also granted marketing authorization for 20 ZYN-branded nicotine pouch products via its Premarket Tobacco Product Application (PMTA) process, marking the first official approval for selling this type of product in the US. The authorized products come in two nicotine strengths (3 mg and 6 mg per pouch) and various flavors (cinnamon, citrus, and menthol, among others). The FDA noted that these products contain significantly lower amounts of harmful constituents compared to cigarettes and most smokeless tobacco items, thus posing a reduced risk of cancer and other serious health issues. According to the agency, the products “have the potential to provide a benefit to adults who smoke cigarettes and/or use other smokeless tobacco products that outweigh the risks, including those to youth.” (source)

US-Massachusetts: Bill proposing a generational ban on tobacco and nicotine product sales

A Democratic member of the Massachusetts State Senate introduced a bill to prohibit sales of tobacco and nicotine products to anyone born on or after January 1, 2006. The text has been referred to a Joint Committee for review. If approved by the Senate and House of Representatives and signed by the governor, it would take effect on January 1, 2027. (source)

January 18 – Mexico

Mexico: Government gazettes Decree banning vaping products and THP

The Mexican Government published in the Official Gazette a Constitutional Decree enabling a ban on producing, distributing, and selling vaping devices and “similar devices” (understood to include HTPs) nationwide. Effective from its publication date (January 18), the Decree grants the Mexican Congress 180 days to “harmonize the legal framework” with its content, while the country’s 32 state legislatures have 365 days to “make the necessary regulatory adjustments.”

January 20 – Brazil

Brazil: Parliament Committee approves Bill strengthening country’s ban on vaping products and THPs

Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies (lower house) Industry, Commerce and Services Committee approved a bill prohibiting the use and the “manufacture, import, marketing, distribution, storage, transportation, and advertising” of vaping products and HTPs in the country. Since 2009, under Resolution RDC No. 46/2009, the sale and import of these products have been banned in Brazil; this ban was reviewed and upheld in 2022 and 2024. The bill now needs approval from both houses of the Brazilian Parliament. Official news (in Portuguese)

ASIA

January 24 – Uzbekistan and Hong Kong

Uzbekistan: Lower house approves Bill banning import and sale of vaping products, moves to Senate

Uzbekistan’s Legislative Chamber (lower house) approved at second and third reading a Government Bill (the latest version is not available online; original version here) that would ban the sale, import, and manufacture of vaping products and e-liquids in the country. Some amendments were introduced during the committee phase. The bill now moves to the Senate (upper house) for review; if approved, it “enters into force on the date of its adoption” (LexUZ).

Hong Kong: Government planning to roll out ban on vaping product possession

Hong Kong’s government plans to propose banning the possession of vaping devices and their refills, beginning in “public places” and later extending “citywide.” This measure was initially proposed in June 2024 by the Hong Kong Medical and Health Bureau, alongside other measures such as banning flavored tobacco, introducing standardized packaging, and adopting “full tobacco hazard warning packaging” for these products. Additional information (in English)

EUROPE

January 14 – Latvia

Latvia: MP from governing coalition suggests banning disposable vaping products

Līga Kozlovska, a member of the Latvian Parliament representing the Union of Greens and Farmers Party (a junior partner in the governing coalition), reportedly proposed introducing legislation to ban the sale of disposable vaping devices in the country.

January 15 – Austria

Austria: Government reviewing draft bill regulating nicotine pouch sales, nicotine limits, warnings, and advertising

The Austrian Ministry of Health has reportedly submitted a draft government bill (not available online) to the Council of Ministers that would subject nicotine pouches to the same restrictions as tobacco products. This would include limiting sales to tobacconists, introducing an unspecified nicotine cap, requiring health warnings on packaging, and restricting advertising. If the government approves, the text would then be submitted to Parliament for debate and potential enactment.

January 17 – Netherlands

Netherlands: Government gazettes Order requiring plain packaging for vaping products from July 1

The Dutch government has published a General Administrative Order requiring plain packaging for cigars and vaping products starting July 1, 2025. The specific details of the measure, including packaging requirements for each product type, will be defined in a future Ministerial Regulation. Official source (in Dutch)

January 18 – Poland

Poland: Government to review draft bills regulating nicotine pouches, nicotine-free vaping products, and a THP flavor ban

Health Minister Izabela Leszczyna stated that by the end of January, the Council of Ministers would review a draft bill introducing a regulatory framework for nicotine pouches and nicotine-free vaping products, classifying them as “tobacco-related products.” Among other measures, the bill would ban advertising, prohibit sales to minors, outlaw distance and online sales, and subject these items to rules on ingredient purity and additives. It would also set a 20 mg/g nicotine limit and require 30% text health warnings on pouches.

While a previous draft included provisions for potentially banning flavored nicotine pouches (except tobacco flavor), it is reported that these were removed at ministers’ request in December. If approved by the Council, the text would go to Parliament, entering into force 14 days after publication, with grace periods of up to six months for specific sections.

Separately, a draft bill (not available online) would introduce a ban on characterizing flavors in heated tobacco products (HTPs) alongside health warning requirements, as mandated by an EU Delegated Act. If approved, it would also need parliamentary ratification to take effect.

January 21 – Luxembourg, Poland, and Finland

Luxembourg: Government prefers regional action on disposable vapes over unilateral measures

The Luxembourgish Ministry of Health stated that “a ban solely targeting disposable vapor products [in Luxembourg] would have limited effect,” emphasizing that a supranational approach covering all types of vaping products would be “more coherent” in addressing this challenge. Source (in English)

Poland: Government adopts draft Bills regulating nicotine pouches and nicotine-free vapor and applying THP flavor ban

The Polish government approved a draft bill drafted by the Ministry of Health that would classify nicotine pouches and nicotine-free vaping products as “tobacco-related products.” Among other measures, the initiative banned their communication and sale to minors, distanced sales, and subjected them to rules on ingredient purity. A 20 mg/g limit would be imposed for nicotine pouches, and text health warnings would be required on at least 30% of the packaging. The text must be notified to the European Commission and subsequently approved by Parliament to enter into force.

Separately, the government adopted regulations banning the sale of heated tobacco products (HTPs) by characterizing flavors and requiring health warnings, which aligns with an EU Delegated Act. A nine-month grace period from their date of entry into force will apply. Government sources (in Polish) banned communication and sale to minors, as well as distance sales, and subjected. (source)

Finland: Government notifies draft Decree introducing plain packaging and health warnings for nicotine pouches

The Government of Finland notified the European Commission of a draft Decree that would impose plain packaging and text health warnings on nicotine pouches. The document is part of the measures in a bill notified in November 2024, which would ban flavors other than menthol and mint, set a 16.6 mg/g nicotine limit, prohibit online sales, and introduce licensing for retailers. The European Commission’s standstill period, during which the Union and member states may raise objections, ends on April 22, 2025. If approved, the provisions would enter into force on the “20th day of the month” in which it is published, with a one-year grace period. Notification to the European Commission (in English)

January 22 – Ukraine

Ukraine: Government agency urges swift regulation of nicotine pouches

The Ukrainian State Service for Food and Consumer Protection (a government agency) met with the Ministry of Health, MPs, and other stakeholders to discuss regulating nicotine pouches. During the meeting, they emphasized the need to expedite the passage of a private member’s bill introduced in October 2024, which would impose a 20 mg-per-pouch limit and require health warnings covering 50% of the packaging. “Our primary task is to regulate at the legislative level the circulation or nicotine content in pouches and exercise control over them… The matter must be resolved immediately to protect citizens’ health,” the agency said. Official release (in Ukrainian)

January 23 – France and Lithuania

France: Deputies table amendment to Social Security Bill to “ban nicotine pouches”

Deputies from the governing coalition introduced an amendment to the Social Security Financing Bill (2025) in the National Assembly (lower house) seeking to “ban nicotine pouches, in line with the announcements made by the Minister of Health” in October 2024. The bill, approved by the Senate (upper house) on January 23, initially included Senate-introduced amendments to regulate these products by setting a nicotine cap and imposing an excise tax. The new amendment aims to remove those provisions and impose a total ban. A mixed committee will meet on January 30 to seek consensus, and the National Assembly may debate and vote on the resulting text the week of February 3. Parliamentary information (in French)

France: Joint Committee approves amended version of Bill banning disposable vapes

A Joint Committee of the French Parliament, composed of deputies and senators, approved a modified bill that bans the manufacture, marketing, distribution, and supply of disposable vaping devices. The text defines disposables as products “pre-filled with a liquid and which cannot be refilled, whether or not they have a rechargeable battery,” a definition intended to anticipate future technological innovations. The Senate is expected to examine the text during the second week of February. Source (in French)

Lithuania: The Ministry of Economy is awaiting Government instruction on drafting a Bill legalizing nicotine pouches and herbal heating products

A spokesperson for Lithuania’s Ministry of Economy confirmed that drafting a bill to legalize and regulate nicotine pouches and herbal heating products was delayed due to the “change of political power in the country” following the October 2024 elections, when a center-left government led by the Social Democratic Party replaced the previous center-right coalition. The Ministry is awaiting “a political decision” on the scope of the text to present the final version to the executive. Source (in English)

January 24 – Ireland

Ireland: Newly-formed Coalition proposes regulating vaping packaging and flavors and banning disposables

Center-right parties Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have agreed to form a Coalition Government following Ireland’s November 2024 General Election and have published a draft Programme for Government that includes commitments to regulate further vaping products that Fianna Fáil initially made in their election manifesto. These include “wide-ranging restrictions on vaping, including packaging, flavors, point of sale advertising, and a ban on disposable vapes.” The proposals must be drafted into a Bill and passed by the Irish Parliament to take effect. (source)