Techne

Previously Iceland had a figure of 12% of the males using snus, with the correspondingly lower figures for smoking. Now the percentage for male smokers has risen to more than 25%. Spurred by the wish to been seen as doing something against the use of tobacco they banned snus. The reason stated was that if people did not use snus, they would not switch to cigarettes later on, in a reversal of the research given on the issue.

There is a good deal of smuggling going on according to my Icelandic contacts and the police is reluctant to enforce the ban of possession. Which is not a good thing, since thus Iceland has created an unenforceable law, that damages their legal system.

The debate before the ban was quick and badly informed. The main argument was emotional, and did not contain any references to science besides some figures from Swedish anti-tobacco authorities

But Icelandic authorities have a long standing tradition of strange bans. Until 1991 the sale of beer was banned in Iceland, but hard liquor and wine were permitted. The reasoning behind was the same, if people don't start with beer, they won't switch to stronger spirits later on. The figures for drinking went up in Iceland, especially among the young that immediately started drinking vodka, and the ban ultimately became impossible to uphold.

Iceland may not be a large market. There are only 300.000 people living on the island, but there are a lot of people that would like to switch back from cigarettes to snus. It is also a good example that the EU sales ban is a wrong move- the logical step for the anti-snus activists would be to enforce a ban on possession of snus in the EU. Iceland shows that not even a stricter ban would work.

Some say that Iceland is one of the freest economies in the world. There is an interesting criticism on this sorts of index. Stefan Karlsson has written an interesting critique of why the Nordic welfare states look so economically free.

In a way this story put the finger on some of the interesting points I would make later: economic freedom is good, but the economy also includes social freedom.