Happy Birthday Smoke Free Sweden marks one year of successful advocacy
Smoke Free Sweden has marked one year of existence and celebrated its achievement of global recognition for Sweden’s fight against smoking using reduced-risk alternatives
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by Dave Cross
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Commenting on the anniversary, Dr Delon Human, leader of the Smoke Free Sweden initiative and former Health Advisor to three WHO Director-Generals, said: “We started the Smoke Free Sweden movement because the world had for so many years the answer to smoking right under its nose. That is what we have been doing over the last year.
“The past 12 months have shown us that people do want to hear about how alternatives can provide a better future and help smokers quit. Our mission now is for governments to incorporate Sweden’s lessons into law.”
In just one year of activity, Smoke Free Sweden says it has published four reports looking at what makes Sweden different and providing a simple template for how governments worldwide can replicate its success and save millions of lives and gained global recognition from media and policymakers alike.
Smoke Free Sweden’s events have occurred on four continents, and Sweden’s story has reached more than 1 billion people worldwide.
Politicians from Sweden to New Zealand, to Brazil have endorsed the Swedish approach to beating smoking.
The country is on the cusp of becoming officially ‘smoke free’, defined as less than 5% smoking incidence, the official threshold set out by the World Health Organization, because less harmful alternatives are accessible, affordable, and acceptable.
As a result, smoking rates in Sweden have dropped by 55% in the past decade alone. Sweden also has 44% fewer tobacco-related deaths, a 41% lower cancer rate, and 38% fewer deaths attributable to any cancer when compared with its EU counterparts.
References:
- Smoke Free Sweden - www.smokefreesweden.org
Photo Credit:
Photo by Isabella Fischer on Unsplash, cropped and resized
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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