Mamong smokers Milanese they woke up, on January 1, 2025, with the Smoking prohibited outdoorsSwedish smokers risk total extinction with the new year. Only 4.5% of Sweden’s 10.5 million citizens regularly light up a cigarette. While the average in the rest of the EU remains around 24%.
2025, smokers’ annus horribilis. From the ban in Milan to Sweden, the first smoke-free country
According to the World Health Organization the crucial threshold to define oneself as a “smoke-free country” is 5%. Sweden can therefore boast this title at the beginning of 2025. A goal achieved through successive phases. In 2005 the Stockholm government banned smoking in bars and restaurants. In 2019 the ban on lighting cigarettes (including electronic ones) within twenty meters of public places such as train and bus stations, playgrounds, sports facilities, restaurant terraces.
The Scandinavian country thus sets a good example, leading the challenge, which the European Union hopes to win by 2040, to become smoke free. As is known, Italy is struggling. Don’t smoke anymore inand public areas (including outdoor areas of bars and restaurants) is «a habit we need to get into», according to Palazzo Marino.
The norm, valid from 2021 in cemeteries, parks and public transport stops, since yesterday it has been extended to all public areas. Outdoors you can smoke only if there is a distance of ten meters from others. You risk fines ranging from 40 to 240 euros.
Smoking is bad for your health and affects fine dust emissions
Behind the measure there is an individual health issue and an environmental issue. Each cigarette, according to a university study just published in Great Britain, is equivalent to 20 minutes less life. But smoking also contributes 7 percent of fine dust emissions. (According to data fromHarp Lombardy. The Air and Climate Plan aims to reduce the level of CO2 by 2030, also thanks to new bans on circulation which will come into force in next years).
In the EU the average for smokers is 14 cigarettes a day. And it is estimated that cigarettes are responsible for the deaths of 700 thousand people.
The Swedish paradox: stop smoking cigarettes, continue chewing tobacco
In Sweden, the most “smoke free” are young people: only 2% are regular smokers, compared to 7% in the 65-84 age group. However, electronic cigarettes are growing, from 2 to 4%, with an increase from 6 to 10% among young people. And, above all, the Swedish tradition of “snus”, oral tobacco, endures to be placed in the mouth, behind the upper lip: the product is banned in other EU countries. But it is so widespread in Sweden that the country put it among the conditions for entry into the European Community in 1995. It is used by 20% of citizens (+3% from 2022) and 27% of young people (+5% ). In short, Sweden celebrates, but not too much.
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