Visitor Writer: Niels Them Kjær, Chief Marketing consultant, Danish Most cancers Society
After a number of months of planning, 9 Danish organizations launched their tobacco endgame imaginative and prescient on September 10, 2025, with the ambition of setting an finish date – 2035 – for the sale of tobacco and nicotine in Denmark. We positioned full web page commercials within the main Danish newspapers all through the week to spotlight our open letter to our flesh pressers:
Pricey Politicians,
Our kids and younger individuals should develop up in a society free from smoke and nicotine.
For too lengthy, dangerous merchandise have made individuals sick. Yearly, 16,000 Danes lose their lives to tobacco-related illnesses. And each single day, younger individuals grow to be hooked on nicotine.
That’s the actuality. However it doesn’t need to be the long run.
Now could be the time to take a daring and bold step in direction of a future with out tobacco and nicotine. If it’s as much as us, tobacco and nicotine will now not be bought as shopper merchandise after 2035.
We have to do it for our kids.
Pricey Politicians,
This was the primary time Danish organizations mentioned loud and clear that we would like a ban on gross sales of tobacco and nicotine merchandise. The Danish Most cancers Society selected this endgame purpose half a 12 months in the past and gathered the assist of the Danish Coronary heart Basis, the Danish Lung Affiliation, the Danish Medical Affiliation, the Danish Dental Affiliation, the Danish Nurses’ Group, Børns Vilkår (kids’s rights) and Danish Seniors.
A current opinion ballot confirmed that fifty% of the Danish inhabitants helps a ban on tobacco and nicotine gross sales starting 2035, 34% are towards it and 16% haven’t selected the query. We knowledgeable our Minister of Well being, the members of the standing committee on well being and Danish Broadcasting Company (Denmark’s largest digital media enterprise) beforehand.
Our Minister of Well being, Sophie Løhde, mentioned that it is going to be unimaginable to implement a gross sales ban due to the market guidelines inside the European Union and that we have to have an up to date Tobacco Merchandise Directive within the EU. However she didn’t simply rule out the proposal. Different politicians mentioned that we are able to increase the age restrict to 25 years, increase taxes and many others. as a substitute.
We participated in a number of TV and radio information packages all through the day. After all, some individuals have been towards the proposal. Some mentioned it was unimaginable as a result of individuals who smoke would both purchase cigarettes illegally or cross the border and purchase in different European nations. Others assume adults ought to maintain the “free selection” to purchase tobacco or nicotine and take the danger of changing into addicted and sick. However lots of people gave their assist and hopefully the assist will develop within the coming years.
