Public Health vs. Public Health; May 2025
When Regulation Becomes a Mirror: Harm, Freedom and the Politics of Fear
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.