Nicotine is under attack. Politicians and so-called health NGOs worldwide have declared war on nicotine and want these products more restricted or banned outright. But unfortunately, in their ideological fight, they have gone blind to the scientific and real-world evidence. 

EU Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi claimed in an interview with Euractiv that vaping, nicotine pouches, and heated tobacco are “100 per cent” as harmful as cigarettes. Previously, he told MEP Kristoffer Storm in a written response regarding nicotine products that “using smoke-free tobacco and nicotine products, as opposed to combustible smoking, does not reduce risk to health.” He also falsely claimed that nicotine causes cancer on an X post he later edited. 

So Europe’s top health politician is 100 per cent certain about the science. Such certainty should make everyone sceptical. That is not how science works, and no serious harm reduction advocate would claim that kind of certainty. Harm reduction advocates work differently. We listen to the people actually affected, and we follow the evidence as it changes. And the evidence is piling up. 

This week, an updated Cochrane Review of 80 randomised trials covering almost 30,000 smokers has found that nicotine vaping helps more smokers quit than nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) such as gums or patches. Cochrane rates the finding “high certainty” (the top grade it issues, and one it awards rarely). Roughly four more people in every hundred quit with nicotine vapes than with patches or gums. It also saw no evidence of increased serious harm, and it found that nicotine vapes work better than nicotine-free ones.

New Zealand shows how this looks in practice. A study found that the smoking rate under standard WHO anti-smoking measures declined very slowly and did not begin to change until 2018. What happened? New Zealand began to endorse vaping as a smoking cessation aid, and smoking rates started falling faster. New Zealand is now close to becoming the second smoke-free nation worldwide after Sweden. 

Sweden also achieved this remarkable accomplishment by following science and not listening to the EU Commission. For decades, Swedes have used snus legally (while banned in the EU), and recently, nicotine pouches and vaping were added to the mix. No flavour bans, no snus or pouch ban, and still, they became smoke-free way ahead of the EU. This is an inconvenient result for a Commissioner who thinks harm reduction does not exist. 

Why are vaping and similar products still under attack? 

Maybe politicians don’t know the evidence. That might have been the case years ago, when surveys in the EU Parliament found that the vast majority of politicians didn’t know about the newer products. But that excuse has expired. Vapes have been around for more than a decade in most countries. The evidence is easy to find, and thousands of consumers have already contacted politicians and told their stories. 

Another explanation could be that they just don’t believe the evidence. This might be understandable if the studies had only been conducted by the tobacco industry. But today, there are thousands of independent studies, and the overwhelming majority point the same way: these products are far less harmful than cigarettes, and they help smokers quit.  

Some might bring up youth protection or tax revenue as reasons why to fight nicotine alternatives. But if these were their real concerns, they would, for once, consider any unintended consequences of their policies. Which they never do. Taking vapes or pouches off the legal market means gifting them to the illicit market. Plus, more adolescents will be picking up smoking. This can’t be the goal. 

The likeliest explanation is the uncomfortable one: they don’t want the evidence to be true. They are convinced that nicotine is bad and must be fought no matter what. “Doing something” about nicotine is cheap applause for politicians. They are additionally encouraged by “health” organisations (often funded by the same politicians) that see smoking rates declining without their suggested policies and, of course, feel threatened. Why would they still be needed if vapes and pouches eradicate smoking? They encourage the war on nicotine, and we see a self-feeding regulatory cycle. 

So how much more evidence do they need? The honest answer is: none. No amount of evidence will move them, because evidence was never the obstacle. 

At the end of the year, the EU Commission is expected to publish its draft regulations to update the Tobacco Products Directive and to push for flavour bans and stricter regulation of less-harmful nicotine products. 

Now we, consumers, must break this regulatory cycle. We need to speak up wherever we can. Confront politicians at every level and make our voices heard. Nobody will do it for us, we need to save harm reduction in Europe by ourselves.