The Ministry of Health is drafting a new law on tobacco here in Finland. This is a draft and is meant to be presented to government for a vote by the end of the year. So changes are still possible.
The cig smokers will have to deal with those graphic horror images on their packs. Some flavourings will be banned and vaping fluids will have some kind of official status, but all of them will have to be unflavored, as well. Which is weird.
Cigars nor pipe tobacco is not mentioned at all. Well, that’s something.
But what’s worst, all forms of smokeless tobacco will be banned as snus has been for some time. So not made actually contraband, but imports and sales would be forbidden. A half a kilo of personal import when returning from abroad into country would be permitted.
This is all about a long term plan of making Finland smoke-free by 2040. What a great way to make a country smoke-free… start by banning smokeless tobacco.
I’m sure the coal and peat fired power plants in Finland do far more harm to people’s health (and the environment) than any smokeless tobacco product. I don’t understand why governments think they can legislate healthy lifestyle choices.
I feel sorry for you and all the tobacco users in Finland. Snuffageddon has begun. This will only spread world wide if any success is measured. I think I heard a similar proposal for the Philippines.This ban will create a black market and products will be sold no questions asked about age. Governments never think it through. Any taxes they normally collect will disappear for menthol black market smokes. Flavored cigar sales will soar. Counterfeit smokes from china will be everywhere and who knows how bad they are.
And I was going to move back home some time. How the hell am I going to move my bulk?!
This would pass without anyone noticing. There are perhaps a handful of people regularly using these products in Finland. And snus is already prohibited to sell.
EDIT: I meant chew and snuff and so on. E-cigs are of course very popular. And the graphics thing would be the most discussed.
It’s sort of weird that they decided to ban snuff and chew. They are almost extinct here anyway. Something clearly made them blip on these busybodies’ radar.
What in the world could make them write down that utter insult of a “proposal”?
I understand that economic lobbies and moralistic, nanny-state imposing naggers can and have attempted to push their agendas: there’s the whole e-cig fiasco and all that, but this is just absurd. There is NO CONCEIVABLE RATIONALITY whatsoever to this thing.
I’m not against no smoking paladins who want to get rid of second hand smoke inside of enclosed public spaces (ambiental contamination is probably much more dangerous, anyway, and no sanctions are being pushed to those ignoring the Kyoto protocole, but whatever!) but I can’t understand what evil can stem from the poor Finn that decides against better judgement to suck on a piece of snus or take a quick sniff of an old favourite snuff. The person in question is significantly reducing the harm that could be done to himself if he chose to smoke insted.
And I friggin’ hope they won’t justify it with the vintage “if it’s flavored it is for children” junk: I can picture my 13 year old self much more attracted to a pack of camel lights than to chew or snuff, be it plain or lollipop flavored.
I wish you Finnish people best of lucks, and for Vainamoinen to come back and talk some sense into your politicians brains.
You won’t notice the graphic images on the packets of cigarettes after about a week. We have had them for years in the UK, no one bats an eyelid now. Same happened with those big text warnings, you see them all the time and just don’t notice them. The snus black market in Finland is huge, a friend I know met the dealer on a train, snus was handed over, no questions asked, then they went on their way.
@ Roderick STICK IT TO THE MAN!!! Laws like that are a joke, similar to the absolute farce that was PACT. We thought that was the end of the world for snuff here in the US yet I seem to have enough snuff beside my couch to give a small country a runny nose
If I couldn’t buy snuff online (and find the occasional small tin in a store), nothing would stop me from getting snuff. I’d black-market order it, smuggle it, and/or make my own. Not trying to be political when I say this, but when governments attempt to treat people like children and protect them from their own free choices, people find a way to weather through it and get what they enjoy.
Didn’t work for alcohol … not working for marijuana and even harder drugs … not working for prostitution … etc, etc. Once humans get a taste of free choice, the game is over. We’re only here a short time so we’re gonna enjoy it while we can. I really feel sorry for those folks in N. Korea and elsewhere that are programmed from birth to be subservient.
