Kenneth Glad
Smoking rates have fallen below a key benchmark. Nicotine use, however, remains widespread in other forms.
The Scandinavian country has reached the level often described in public health work as smoke-free, NRK reports, citing data from CAN, the Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs. Daily smoking is now 4.8 percent, down from 16 percent in 2003.
That label does not mean nobody smokes. It means that daily use has fallen below the five percent benchmark that has been a Swedish policy goal since 2016.
The figures are from CAN’s annual survey, in which about 18,000 people aged 17 to 84 answered questions about tobacco and nicotine habits.
Cigarettes lost public space
According to Swedish public broadcaster SVT, CAN researcher Mats Ramstedt linked the decline mainly to long-term prevention measures.
He pointed to reduced access, higher costs and stricter smoking rules as important factors.
The Swedish nicotine use has not declined, though, as snus is on the rise. Ramstedt says, however, that the fall in smoking should not be explained only by snus, as smoking was already declining before the latest rise in snus use, he told SVT.
Unlike cigarettes, snus is not smoked and does not create secondhand smoke. That distinction helps explain why Sweden can record very low smoking while still having high nicotine use.
CAN reports that 30 percent of Swedes now use some type of nicotine product.
In 2025, 22 percent of Swedes said they had used snus in the past month. Most of them were daily users.
One of the clearest changes is among women. According to CAN, women’s snus use has tripled since 2007.
Young adults drive concern
Vaping remains limited in the full Swedish population, with five percent reporting recent use. Among 17- to 29-year-olds, the figure is much higher, at 16 percent.
Overall nicotine use in that younger age group has reached 44 percent.
That is the policy problem behind the milestone: Fewer people are smoking, but many are still using nicotine.
Norway shows a similar pattern, NRK writes, as daily smoking there is now seven percent, while snus use is far higher among young men.
Tord Finne Vedøy, a researcher at Norway’s public health institute, told NRK that Norway and Sweden have followed similar tobacco trends for years.
The next debate in both countries is not only how to reduce cigarettes, but how far governments should go in targeting nicotine itself.
Sources: NRK, SVT, CAN
