Taking the sting out of snus and ending the EU snus ban by Bengt Wiberg
Taking the sting out of snus and ending the EU snus ban by Bengt Wiberg
The Royal Snus Online welcomes snus inventor and tobacco harm reduction advocate Bengt Wiberg from Sweden whose patent approved snus pouch (portion) innovation can increase snus enjoyment for all brands of snus as well as facilitate the switch from smoking of cigarettes to much less harmful smoke-free nicotine product snus, chew bags or tobacco free nicotine pouches in the near future. The world’s second largest magazine for tobacco and other nicotine products, Tobacco Journal International (TJI), with readers in over 100 nations have generously permitted us to republish this article published in TJI world-wide in April 2018 and credits to the journalist Sophie Bullen who wrote the article. More recent photographs have been added to the article due to the latest developments the past year. Wiberg started the international crowd movement EUforsnus in December 2017 to support an end to the European Union snus ban. At the end of this article you can read his thoughts on how snus can become allowed, not only in the EU, but also in many other parts of the world and why.
Taking the sting out of snus
Since it was patented last year, Bengt Wiberg’s sting-free snuspouch has not only garnered the interest of international snus manufacturers, it has also made him a tobacco harm reduction celebrity. His #EUforsnus social media campaign has helped stimulate what he calls “a young snus revolution”, advancing the snus cause in both the EU and the USA.
Most scientists now agree that using Swedish snus is at least 95 per cent less harmful than smoking cigarettes. Sweden has the lowest tobacco-related mortality rate among males of any nation in the EU. Just 5 per cent of Swedes remain daily smokers. It is facts like these that have put snus (and “The Swedish Experience”) in the tobacco harm reduction spotlight the world over. There is, nonetheless, one irrefutable and often overlooked downside to snus use. Owing to its high pH-level (which is commonly around 8.7 to aid nicotine uptake, compared to a normal mouth environment of pH 7-7.5), snus can cause a stinging, burning sensation when placed under the lip. Regular use can lead to what are known as “snus lesions” in the oral mucous membrane lining the inside of the mouth. These are fully reversible if snus use stops; if left untreated, however, they can lead to more serious problems. The characteristic snus stinging can also be an off-putting factor for smokers looking to switch to the product as a reduced risk alternative. Luckily, a solution to both the snus sting and its more severe consequences is now well on the way, thanks to one enterprising user.
Back in 2010, 52-year old accountant and snus user from the Swedish island of Lidingö, Bengt Wiberg was diagnosed with a severe snus lesion. His gum had started to retract towards his front teeth so far that he was told by his dentist he had to stop using snus or it would continue and expose the tooth neck. Not wanting to give up a habit he had enjoyed since his teenage years, Wiberg took matters into his own hands. Realising that other kinds of wounds were protected from external irritation by barriers, he attached a plaster (band-aid) to the side of his snus pouch that faced his gum. This soon evolved into a piece of thin, soft, harmless, plastic film. With this in place when he used snus, he experienced no more stinging. And soon enough, his dentist agreed that his oral health had been fully restored. Wiberg realised his patch could be developed into a product to benefit other snus users. Sting-free snus was born.
Sting Free snus and all white snus prototypes and how the technology works
It has taken several years of fine-tuning, and two government start-up allowances (the first ever for a Swedish tobacco-related product, he claims) for Wiberg to get to the point he is at today. Last summer (2017), he was granted a patent in Sweden for his sting-free snus solution: an impermeable, soft and ultra-thin (around 0.03 mm) membrane, approved by The Swedish National Food Agency and in adherence with EU regulation, which can be integrated into one side of the snus pouch in the manufacturing process. “Sting Free snus disrupts the snus pouch direct contact with gum and oral mucous membrane and therefore makes snus products more enjoyable with less pain and lower increased relative risk for irritation on these organs,” Wiberg explains.
Original perspective drawing on Sting Free snus technology
Swedish Match North Europe has already signed a licensing agreement for use of Wiberg’s Sting Free patent approved technology but doesn’t have exclusive rights. This means Wiberg is free to arrange more non-exclusive licences with other snus manufacturers for the manufacturing, developing, marketing, distribution and sale of sting-free snus products – something he says he’s well on the way to doing. “Sting Free snus pouches might also become a separate snus pouch accessory in the future” he adds, “but mainly the technology will be included in many snus pouch brands – new or existing - and thus immediately ready for the snus consumer to use.”
The CEO of Swedish Match North Europe, Joakim Tilly and and Sting Free snus inventor
Bengt Wiberg after signing a non-exclusive licensing agreement.
Snus 3.0?
Wiberg hopes his Sting Free snus will become what he calls the “3.0 of snus” – with 1.0 being traditional loose snus and 2.0 being pouch snus invented in 1967 by Professor Curt Enzell. “My hope is that in 1 to 2 years every snus, moist snuff in pouch and chew bag manufacturer in the world will provide the optional sting-free properties to their consumers.
“Sting-free snus has already ‘caught on’ I get reports from tobacco dealers in both Sweden and Norway saying that customers are regularly asking for such products,” he says. “This phenomenon is in itself perhaps unique in business history. Ask yourself if you have ever heard of a product that is asked for repeatedly by consumers for over a year without the product ever having been produced for sale.” Wiberg’s invention has already received a number of accolades. Last September, Sting Free snus won the "Most exciting newcomer to the industry" award at the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum in New York, he reveals. “I also won the price for Top Business idea in the Swedish “Venture Cup” a year ago.”
While working on a cost-efficient industrial manufacturing process for his product, Wiberg has met both snus packaging machine and snus paper manufacturers from Germany and the UK. He says attaching the sting-free impermeable film to the standard non-woven snus paper can be done by either laminating the two materials together using heat or an adhesive, or without lamination by including a second bobbin in the snus machine for the impermeable film. While Wiberg says he is not sure how Swedish Match is going about manufacturing their own sting-free snus, the company has verbally confirmed that “the sting-free technology works and is possible to mass produce on an industrial scale”. He believes the release date for the first sting-free snus products will be within a year.
“My wish is for snus users all over the world to benefit from my improvements in snus use and even more for providing of painless and less irritating snus (or moist snuff or chewing tobacco in pouch) alternatives to smoking of cigarettes,” he explains.
#EUforsnus campaign
Wiberg is not only doing his best to make sure that a snus pouch is as comfortable as possible in the mouth, he’s also doing a great deal to ensure “snus” is on everybody’s lips. He believes his invention has the potential to help even more smokers, currently put off by the sting, to switch to snus, and his involvement has turned him into an active advocate for tobacco harm reduction. His sting free invention has taken him to a number of tobacco and nicotine related conferences across the globe, and seen him speak up for snus to be appropriately regulated as a tobacco harm reduction product in both the EU and USA. “Swedish Match recently congratulated me on making FDA Tobacco Director Mitch Zeller admit for the for the first time in public that FDA ‘absolutely understands the Swedish Experience’ of snus a few months ago,” he says.
Wiberg has also become involved in the New Nicotine Alliance’s (NNA) challenge of the EU’s ban on snus. “NNA’s campaign shows that any group of consumers in the world, that ordinary consumers can make a difference,” he tells TJI. Indeed, it was NNA’s upcoming hearing in January 2018 that inspired him to set up a social media campaign #EUforsnus back in December 2017 with the help of friend and fellow snus enthusiast, Uwe Hille of Snusfreak.com. “I realised that time was short. My purpose with the campaign was to wake up people all over Europe through social media to what’s at stake in the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and to make the vital point that anything other than dropping the snus ban in the EU could cost thousands of smokers’ their lives annually.”
The EUforsnus campaign is now present on Euforsnus.org, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn, Wiberg tells TJI. The campaign on Facebook alone has over 2500 members from 90 countries, 44 per cent of these are women, and 68 per cent are 34 or younger. “I think the younger generation doesn’t flatly fall for tobacco control’s blunt attempts to brand snus as dangerous and therefore comparable to smoking cigarettes, without informing the public of the totally different degrees of harm,” he explains.
“Social media, as well as the ready availability of information online, has helped the younger generation find less harmful products containing nicotine like e-cigarettes and snus. They might not have adopted the phrase ‘harm reduction’ yet but it doesn’t matter what it is called as long as people change habits to lower risk products and thus save lives.”
Daily smoking rate I EU as per Eurobarometer 2017
Sweden has by far the lowest tobacco mortality in EU and the lowest cancer rates.
Wiberg believes we are on the verge of a global snus revolution. “China has now allowed snus for a year and has even started producing a few own brands,” he says. “Switzerland and New Zealand are next in line to legalize snus. In India, the local smokeless tobacco is inferior and even dangerous, but about 150 million people use it on a daily basis. Export the Swedish snus technology there also and snus will become one of the most serious contenders to the cigarette industry in the world.”
The Swedish Experience of snus could help reduce harm globally
There is no doubt that Wiberg has caught the entrepreneurial bug and won’t be stopping any time soon. His company, known as “B-O Wiberg Solutions AB”, is now working on what he describes as 2 to 3 “new snus inventions”. “All of these innovations could increase the sales of snus and contribute to increased snus enjoyment world-wide,” he says.
Despite his apparently limitless drive, Wiberg seems quite surprised at what he has achieved. “During this long process I've been forced to ‘become’ dentist, scientist, patent engineer, tobacco harm reduction advocate, social media freak, besides being an old Swedish MBA - I'm 60 years old!” Visit stingfreesnus.com for more information.
S. Jean
The Royal Snus Online today asked Wiberg what can be done about the EU snus ban 2019 and onward. He states that only two ways to change EU’s snus ban remains. The first is the political way i.e. that European Parliament politicians are informed and get to understand the Swedish Experience of snus and how this could theoretically save 350 000 Europeans lives per year if European men’s tobacco consumption habits were the same as in Sweden. Swedish men smoke in a record low degree. We use the much less harmful, as compared with smoking, snus instead. Many of us who are supporting tobacco harm reduction have noticed that several parties in Sweden are now officially pro-snus and supporting an end to the EU snus ban. A survey among the 38 Swedish EU candidates for the EU Parliament published 21 May 2019 show that 3 out of 4 want to end the EU snus ban right now. Only 5% of the candidates are opposed to this and the rest are (so far) indecisive.
The second way to have EU drop the snus ban is if the European Court of Human Rights would come to a verdict that it is a human right to be able to choose a less harmful alternative to smoking, Swedish snus in this case, that has already helped Sweden as well as Iceland and Norway to greatly reduce smoking. It should be noted that smoking among young (16-24 year old) Norwegian women have dropped from 30%, down to 1%, in less than 20 years. Much probably thanks to snus use. The statistics on smoking and snus use in Norway was published by the national Norwegian statistical bureau a year ago.
The EUforsnus international crowd movement and their ideas on allowing adult nicotine users to enjoy safer alternatives like snus and also to aid smoking cessation, is still alive and have also attracted attention from all over the world e.g. in Africa, India, New Zealand and other countries besides the European and North American continents. Any person is welcome to join us e.g. on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/groups/EUforsnus/
It is also great that the vaping consumer organisations and INNCO.org are now championing snus, alongside vaping as products and methods of helping global smoking cessation.
Wiberg’s final message is: “People smoke for the nicotine but die from the tar and the gases inhaled when smoking. Nicotine is not an enemy. It is a stimulant that can be found, not only in tobacco leaves, but also in a big part of the vegetable kingdom such as in tomatoes, green peppers etc. Science have not been able to prove that nicotine cause any diseases. Ask yourself why else can smoking replacement products be advertised and sold without prescription all over the world in the form of nicotine gum, patches, lozenges etc.
Nicotine is nicotine, no matter what delivery form it is consumed in. I don’t wish for any person to be addicted to either nicotine, drugs, alcohol or bad health due to lack of exercise etc. It is however naive to believe that 1,2 billion daily smokers could quit their smoking habits ‘just like that’ without offering harm reduced alternatives such as snus, Ecigarettes, heated products or nicotine gums for that matter. There is hope for the world. According to the Smoke Free World Foundation, about 70% of the average smoker in the world wish to be able to quit smoking cigarettes. So my advice to the European Union and governments around the world is to at least try to understand human behaviour and begin to acknowledge harm reduction as one way of reducing premature deaths and suffering among humans. According to the world health organization (WHO) about seven million people die annually due to smoking caused diseases. That is more deaths than all wars during the whole period 1946-2016 combined. When it comes to science and snus, the world’s largest meta-data study (The Global Burden of Disease Study) covering some 26 years of published science concluded that snus use adds no increased relative risk for any sickness. The study was published in The Lancet in September 2017.
Quote from Swedish “Läkartidningen” by professor Stefan Willers.
As for my own patented snus improvement innovation, Sting Free snus, I’m convinced that snus, chew bags and nicotine pouches will in the near future also be offered in sting-free pouch varieties. A major reason being that 9 out of 10 adult smokers, as indications have shown, trying snus first time react negatively to the burning sensation on the gum.
Contact:
https://www.facebook.com/stingfreesnus/
https://www.instagram.com/sting_free_snus
https://stingfreesnus.com/
https://twitter.com/Stingfreesnus
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrtpjgNYl6yX0eljBLzQPPQ
info@stingfreesnus.com
Video: Sting Free Snus in 60 seconds https://youtu.be/OVmOvIisjS4