Netherlands: RIVM suggests several ways to break the appeal of cigarettes

Making cigarettes darker, removing the filter, removing certain additives, significantly reducing the nicotine content or putting health messages on cigarettes are among the suggestions from the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) to make cigarettes less attractive in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands has, in recent years, taken several measures to denormalize tobacco: it has introduced standardized plain packaging for cigarettes and rolling tobacco, banned the stalls cigarettes at points of sale, have multiplied outdoor spaces tobacco free. They will restrict the number of points of sale from 2024 and should bring the price of a packet of cigarettes to €10 in 2025The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) now also wants to include provisions regarding the product itself.

Several proposals to change cigarettes in the Netherlands

A literature review conducted by the RIVM has listed various ways to make cigarettes less attractive.[1]Several avenues have been chosen in this direction:

• Making cigarettes darker would be a way of breaking their appeal, suggesting a stronger taste and greater health damage.[2]This would involve a legislative change, as white cigarettes are required by law in the Netherlands.
• Putting health messages on cigarettes would be a way to appeal to smokers, while breaking the current visual code and alerting non-smokers. This option is also being considered in the United Kingdom And in Canada.
• Removing the filter from cigarettes would stop misleading smokers into believing that it makes cigarettes less harmful. Filters have a marketing function and also to reduce the harshness of cigarettes, ban them would make it easier to perceive the dangerousness of products, and would reduce their visual and taste appeal. This measure is also supported in France by the National Committee against Smoking.
• At the request of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, the RIVM has drawn up a list of additives to be removed from tobacco products and e-liquids for electronic cigarettes.[3]. This list includes all sugars and many texturising and flavouring agents, to which the RIVM has added nicotine salts, vitamin E acetate and titanium dioxide. More generally, the presence of vitamins seems contraindicated, in that it would imply a health benefit from e-cigarettes, which is not the case. In total, 149 substances are listed as undesirable. A similar list has also been drawn up in Germany and Belgium, in anticipation of the revision of the European Tobacco Products Directive (TPD).
• Another option being considered is to significantly reduce the nicotine content of cigarettes, down to 0.4 mg/gram instead of the current 16 mg. The resulting cigarettes would be no less harmful, but would reduce nicotine addiction. A brand of this type of cigarette is in the works of experimentation in the United States.

Keywords: Netherlands, RIVM, cigarettes, health messages, reduced nicotine content.

M.F.

[1] RIVM, Darker cigarettes and other measures to make cigarettes less appealing, published April 14, 2023, accessed April 17, 2023.

[2] RIVM: dark cigarettes and a ban on filters and flavors would discourage smokers, TakeToNews, published April 13, 2023, accessed April 17, 2023.

[3] RIVM, RIVM prepares a recommended list of banned substances in tobacco products and e-cigarettes, published April 13, 2023, accessed April 17, 2023.