UK Smoking Ban – SNUS – you lose…
With the UK Government announcing late last year that they were aiming for the UK to be “Smoke Free” by 2030 it seems like seasoned smokers are once again the butt of everyone’s jokes.
King Charles doubled-down on the Rishi Sunak plan by rating the smoking age up one year every year so that a 14-year-old today will never be able to legally buy a cigarette.
Addressing parliamentarians at the King’s first State Opening of Parliament as monarch, Charles declared the laws ‘will deliver a smoke-free generation’.
The proposal was first announced by the prime minister at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester in 2023 when he stated: The government will help the next generation be the first in the UK to live smoke-free, by setting out its plan to end the sale of cigarettes completely.
When Did Cigarettes Run Out of Puff?
Back in July 2007 smoking was in fact banned in enclosed workplaces and public places including pubs, bars, shopping centres and football grounds, much to the dismay of football fans everywhere.
Vaping of course took over as a more “healthy” alternative and fruity clouds of fake smoke filled the air across the UK. Although vaping has been backed by the NHS as an acceptable way to cut down or give up smoking, it is still banned in many public places, including football stadiums.
There have been a lot of reports over the past year regarding SNUS and the fact that many premier league footballers, as well as fans, are turning to these nicotine pouches as an alternative to the “anti-social” and illegal habit of smoking a cigarette.
What is SNUS?
Snus (pronounced snooz, and literally translated as a nicotine pouch) is smokeless tobacco, traditionally made in Sweden and is fast becoming ubiquitous: it is in most Nordic countries, and now sweeping across the UK as an alternative to smoking due to Premier League footballers such as Jamie Vardy.
Snus is dramatically different from tobacco used in cigarettes and other combusted tobacco products in terms of many of its production processes; ingredients, however, are one of the areas in which most differences between snus and cigarettes are found.
Shaped like little mini tea bags, they are placed between the lip and gum and left there for up to 60 minutes. There are many nicotine free options available but generally speaking each pouch contains anywhere from 3mg to 11mg of nicotine.
Players’ testimonies suggest that SNUS is recreationally more commonly used to help with relaxing, while the Loughborough University study, conducted in collaboration with the Professional Footballers Association, announced that peak-performing athletes should not use nicotine pouches as their use is deemed unprofessional.
Summary
With the Nation’s health forever under the watchful eye of the government, even gaining a mention from King Charles, the aim is to make Britain “smoke-free” by 2030.
Football is followed by millions of fans all around the world and with the influence of high profile Football players such as the aforementioned Jamie Vardy moving away from traditional cigarettes to the smokeless “healthier” nicotine delivery system, know as SNUS, the people of the United Kingdom are slowly but surely moving away from the statistically proven health risks caused by traditional tobacco cigarettes.