Sweden and Denmark share a border, similar living standards and long-established tobacco-control policies. Both have also set ambitions to create smoke-free societies.
Their smoking patterns, however, have diverged.
A 2024 report from Smoke Free Sweden, The Great Divide, uses that contrast to make a strong case for Sweden’s approach to tobacco harm reduction. It argues that wider access to smoke-free nicotine products, combined with taxation that differentiates between cigarettes and lower-risk alternatives, has helped Sweden reduce smoking more rapidly than Denmark. The report describes a 55% reduction in Swedish smoking over the preceding decade, compared with 38% in Denmark.
The comparison is worth examining. But some of the report’s conclusions go further than the available evidence can establish.
Since the report was published, Denmark has also implemented major new rules for nicotine pouches, while newer national data give us a clearer picture of smoking in both countries. That makes the comparison particularly timely for European policymakers.
The central question is broader than which Nordic country has chosen the better policy. It is whether regulation can protect young people while preserving meaningful differences between combustible cigarettes and smoke-free nicotine products.
The Smoking Gap Is Real
Sweden has one of Europe’s lowest rates of daily smoking.
According to Sweden’s Public Health Agency, 5.4% of people aged 16–84 reported daily smoking in 2024. Among people aged 16–29, the figure was just 2%. The agency also reports that daily smoking has fallen substantially over the longer term, from around 14% in 2006 to roughly 5% in 2024.
Denmark remains further from that position.
The Danish Health Authority’s 2024 smoking survey found that 17% of respondents aged 15–79 smoked either daily or occasionally. Eleven per cent smoked daily, down from 13% in 2022.
Different national surveys are not perfectly comparable, so precise country rankings need care. The broad pattern is nevertheless clear: daily smoking is substantially less common in Sweden.
The Great Divide attributes much of this difference to the countries’ treatment of smoke-free alternatives. Sweden has a long history of snus use and has increasingly incorporated newer products such as nicotine pouches into its nicotine market. The report contrasts this with Denmark’s more restrictive direction.
There is a plausible harm-reduction argument here.
There is also an important evidential limitation.
Sweden’s Experience Should Not Be Reduced to One Explanation
Country comparisons can identify patterns. They cannot easily establish causation.
Sweden’s smoking decline has occurred alongside widespread use of snus and, more recently, nicotine pouches. That makes substitution an important part of the discussion. Yet Sweden has also implemented many conventional tobacco-control measures over several decades.
The Swedish Public Health Agency itself points to advertising restrictions, taxation, age limits and smoke-free environments when describing the country’s long-term decline in smoking.
Cultural factors matter as well. Snus has deep historical roots in Sweden that cannot simply be recreated elsewhere through regulation.
For that reason, statements that Sweden’s smoke-free products caused its exceptionally low smoking prevalence should be treated cautiously. The stronger conclusion is that Sweden demonstrates that very low cigarette smoking can coexist with continued nicotine use through non-combustible products.
That distinction matters.
It shifts attention from nicotine prevalence alone towards the way nicotine is consumed and the health risks associated with different products.
Combustion Remains Central to the Risk Discussion
The Smoke Free Sweden report places considerable emphasis on the relative-harm continuum. Its page-three graphic positions cigarettes at the highest end of a harm scale, with nicotine replacement products, e-cigarettes, snus and other smokeless products lower down.
The general principle is well established: the health risks associated with nicotine products depend heavily on the method of delivery and exposure to harmful constituents.
Smoking is particularly dangerous because burning tobacco creates a complex mixture of toxic chemicals that users inhale repeatedly. Removing combustion can therefore substantially change exposure.
That does not make nicotine pouches, vaping products or snus harmless.
Nicotine is addictive. Different products have their own risk profiles, and long-term evidence is considerably stronger for some categories than others. Nicotine uptake among children and people who otherwise would not use nicotine remains a legitimate public-health concern.
This is where proportionate regulation becomes important. Recognising differences in risk should inform regulation without becoming a reason to weaken sensible consumer protections.
Denmark Has Now Chosen a More Restrictive Path
The Danish policy described as proposed in the 2024 Smoke Free Sweden report is no longer merely a proposal.
New Danish rules began taking effect on 1 July 2025 and became fully applicable to products on the market after a transition period ending on 31 March 2026. Nicotine pouches may now contain no more than 9 mg of nicotine per pouch. Characterising flavours are restricted to tobacco and menthol, packaging must be standardised, and packs must contain 20 pouches.
Denmark has gone further on enforcement. From 1 April 2026, restrictions also apply to importing, purchasing, receiving and possessing non-compliant nicotine products, subject to a limited personal-use exemption for travellers.
The Danish government has been clear about its rationale: the measures are intended primarily to reduce the attractiveness and availability of nicotine products to children and young people.
That objective deserves serious weight.
The question for policymakers is whether the chosen measures achieve it without creating disproportionate effects elsewhere.
The 9 mg Question
The Smoke Free Sweden report is particularly critical of Denmark’s 9 mg nicotine limit. It argues that restricting product strength too severely may make pouches less satisfactory for adults moving away from cigarettes and could encourage demand for illicit products.
Those outcomes are plausible, but they should not be presented as established facts before adequate post-implementation evidence exists.
Denmark now provides an opportunity to test them.
Researchers and regulators can examine what happens to smoking, pouch use, switching behaviour, consumption per user, cross-border purchases and illicit supply following implementation of the new rules.
Youth outcomes need equal attention.
If youth nicotine use falls substantially without weakening smoking cessation or increasing illicit supply, that would strengthen the case for Denmark’s approach. If adult smokers find legal products inadequate and turn back to cigarettes, use more pouches to obtain the same nicotine dose, or move towards unregulated suppliers, those effects would also matter.
Policy evaluation should be prepared to find either result.
That is more useful than assuming success or failure from the outset.
Sweden Also Has Questions to Answer
Sweden should face the same evidential scrutiny.
Its low smoking prevalence is a major public-health achievement. Yet nicotine use among younger adults deserves continued attention.
Sweden’s Public Health Agency reports that daily nicotine-pouch use reached 5% of the overall population in 2024 and was considerably more common among younger people. Among women aged 16–29, daily use increased from 10% in 2022 to 15% in 2024; among men in that age group, it rose from 5% to 11%.
At the same time, only 2% of people aged 16–29 reported smoking daily.
Those figures illustrate the complexity of interpreting nicotine prevalence.
If nicotine pouches are replacing cigarettes among people who would otherwise smoke, the public-health implications differ from a situation in which widespread pouch use is developing among people who otherwise would have remained nicotine-free.
Cross-sectional prevalence figures cannot fully distinguish between those pathways.
Longitudinal evidence on initiation, switching, dual use and cessation is therefore essential.
Taxation Sends a Regulatory Signal
Another argument in The Great Divide concerns taxation.
The report describes Sweden’s decision to widen the tax differential between cigarettes and snus, presenting affordability as part of a broader harm-reduction strategy.
There is a sound policy question underneath that argument.
Excise taxes influence relative prices. Relative prices can influence consumer choices. A system that taxes a substantially lower-risk nicotine product more heavily than cigarettes could weaken the financial incentive for an adult smoker to switch.
That does not mean every smoke-free product should be lightly taxed.
Governments may legitimately use excise policy to discourage nicotine initiation, particularly among price-sensitive younger consumers. Revenue objectives also matter. The challenge is finding a structure that reflects those concerns while preserving incentives to move away from combustible tobacco.
Risk-proportionate taxation therefore deserves consideration alongside product standards, rather than being treated purely as a revenue question.
Two Countries, Two Regulatory Experiments
The most useful way to view Sweden and Denmark may be as two evolving policy experiments.
Sweden demonstrates what can happen when very low smoking prevalence coexists with relatively widespread access to alternative nicotine products.
Denmark is now testing whether stronger product restrictions can reduce youth nicotine use while continuing to drive smoking downward.
Neither experience should be treated as definitive proof of a regulatory philosophy.
What happens next matters more.
Denmark’s 2024 data already show daily smoking falling from 13% in 2022 to 11% in 2024, before its latest pouch restrictions became fully effective. Future trends therefore need to be assessed against that existing trajectory rather than attributed automatically to policies introduced later.
The same discipline should apply to Sweden. Falling smoking rates predate nicotine pouches by decades, so recent products cannot reasonably receive all the credit for Sweden’s success.
Good policy analysis needs to resist both forms of overstatement.
What GINN Takes From the Nordic Divide
For GINN, the Sweden-Denmark comparison reinforces the importance of judging nicotine regulation by measurable public-health outcomes.
Youth protection is fundamental. Governments have legitimate reasons to restrict youth-oriented marketing, enforce age limits and set product standards. Rising nicotine-pouch use among younger Swedes shows why those safeguards require continued attention.
Risk differentiation matters too.
A regulatory framework should be capable of acknowledging that cigarettes, nicotine pouches, e-cigarettes and medicinal nicotine products have different exposure profiles. Applying identical restrictions simply because each contains nicotine may overlook differences relevant to public health.
The real test is what regulation achieves after implementation.
Smoking prevalence, complete switching, youth initiation, dual use, product compliance and illicit-market activity should all be monitored. Where policies produce unintended effects, governments should be willing to adjust them.
That is the practical meaning of evidence-based, risk-proportionate regulation.
Europe Should Watch What Happens Next
The original Great Divide report presents Sweden as the model Denmark should follow. The comparison is more useful when framed less prescriptively.
Sweden has achieved exceptionally low smoking prevalence while maintaining access to several forms of smoke-free nicotine. Denmark has chosen tighter controls designed principally around preventing youth nicotine use. Both countries now provide evidence that European policymakers can study.
The important question is no longer whether Denmark should simply become Sweden.
It is which elements of each approach produce the best outcomes, for whom, and at what cost.
Europe is already debating the future of nicotine regulation. Sweden and Denmark offer an unusually valuable comparison because neighbouring countries are pursuing different approaches against broadly similar social and economic backgrounds.
Policymakers should make use of that opportunity.
Measure the outcomes. Follow smoking as well as nicotine use. Separate youth initiation from adult switching. Watch illicit markets. Revisit assumptions when the evidence requires it.
The Nordic divide should become a source of evidence rather than another dividing line in the nicotine debate.
