Sweden presents an unusual picture in European nicotine policy. Daily cigarette smoking has fallen to historically low levels, while the use of other nicotine products, particularly snus and nicotine pouches, remains considerably more common.
According to Sweden’s Public Health Agency, 5.4% of people aged 16–84 reported smoking tobacco daily in 2024. At the same time, nicotine pouch use has increased, particularly among younger adults. Five percent of the population reported using nicotine pouches daily in 2024, while tobacco-containing snus remains widely used, especially among men.
These figures raise an important question about how nicotine statistics are presented. Measures combining cigarettes, snus, nicotine pouches and e-cigarettes can be useful for understanding overall nicotine exposure. But when different products are grouped together without sufficient context, they can also obscure one of the most important public-health developments in Sweden: cigarette smoking has become comparatively uncommon.
Different Statistics Answer Different Questions
There are legitimate reasons to measure overall tobacco and nicotine use. Policymakers need to understand nicotine dependence, youth initiation, multiple-product use and changing consumer behaviour.
Swedish authorities themselves monitor these broader patterns. Among adolescents, for example, the Public Health Agency reports substantial use of nicotine pouches and snus, making combined measures useful when assessing nicotine exposure among young people.
But a measure of “tobacco and nicotine use” answers a different question from a measure of cigarette smoking.
If the objective is to understand nicotine exposure, combining categories may sometimes be appropriate. If the objective is to understand progress in reducing smoking-related disease, cigarette prevalence remains an essential measure because combustion fundamentally changes the exposure profile.
The two statistics should therefore complement rather than replace each other.
Sweden Shows Why Product Categories Matter
Sweden is particularly useful for illustrating this distinction because its nicotine market differs significantly from those of many other European countries.
Smoking has declined over several decades, while oral nicotine use remains relatively common. The Public Health Agency reports that tobacco smoking has decreased since the 1980s, while snus use has increased in recent years and newer nicotine products have become increasingly popular, particularly among younger people.
A broad measure covering all tobacco and nicotine products can therefore produce a substantially higher prevalence figure than cigarette smoking alone.
Neither figure is necessarily wrong. They simply describe different behaviours.
Problems arise when the broader figure is interpreted as though every person counted faces the same exposure or when overall nicotine use is presented as equivalent to smoking prevalence.
Product Differences Have Public-Health Significance
Nicotine is addictive and is not risk-free. Increased nicotine pouch use among younger Swedes deserves particular attention. In 2024, daily nicotine pouch use among women aged 16–29 reached 15%, compared with 10% in 2022. Among men in the same age group, it increased from 5% to 11%.
Those trends should be reported clearly rather than hidden behind national smoking statistics.
The reverse is equally important. Rising use of nicotine pouches should not obscure falling cigarette smoking.
Cigarettes expose users to products of tobacco combustion, while nicotine pouches are used orally and do not involve combustion. Tobacco snus and e-cigarettes have their own characteristics and exposure pathways. Combining all of these products into a single headline number can therefore provide information about nicotine use while providing considerably less information about the distribution of health risk.
Good surveillance needs both perspectives.
Better Statistics Can Support Better Regulation
Sweden already demonstrates how more detailed surveillance can work. Since 2022, its National Public Health Survey has separated questions about tobacco-containing snus from tobacco-free nicotine pouches, allowing trends in the two categories to be examined independently.
That level of distinction should be encouraged.
Policymakers need to know how many people smoke cigarettes, use nicotine pouches, use tobacco snus, vape, use multiple products or use no nicotine at all. They also need information about age, frequency, initiation, switching and cessation.
Combined indicators can remain useful, particularly when examining overall nicotine exposure or youth use. But they should be accompanied by product-specific figures wherever those differences are relevant to interpreting public-health outcomes.
Measurement Shapes the Policy Debate
Statistics do more than describe behaviour. They influence how policymakers, journalists and the public understand a problem.
A headline stating that a significant share of the population uses “tobacco or nicotine” communicates something important about nicotine consumption. It does not, however, tell us how many people are smoking cigarettes.
Sweden demonstrates why that distinction matters.
Its relatively low daily smoking prevalence should not be used to dismiss concerns about increasing nicotine use among young people. Equally, rising use of smoke-free nicotine products should not be presented in a way that obscures the decline in cigarette smoking.
For GINN, accurate nicotine surveillance therefore requires more than counting users. It requires identifying what products people use, how they use them and how patterns change over time.
Combustible and non-combustible products can both warrant regulation, but they should not become statistically interchangeable. If policymakers are to understand whether tobacco-control strategies are reducing harm, product categories need to remain visible in the data.
Sources
Public Health Agency of Sweden. Use of tobacco and nicotine products. National Public Health Survey data show that 5.4% of people aged 16–84 smoked daily in 2024 and provide separate statistics for nicotine pouch and tobacco-snus use.
Public Health Agency of Sweden. Use of tobacco and nicotine products among adolescents. Provides product-specific data on smoking, snus, e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches among young people.
Public Health Agency of Sweden. Purpose and background to questions in the National Public Health Survey 2024. The survey separates tobacco-containing snus and tobacco-free nicotine pouches in its questions and data collection.
