EU Takes Finland to Court Again For NOT Banning the Use of Oral Tobacco ..

October 23, 2007 - EU Takes Finland to Court Again For NOT Banning the Use of Oral Tobacco - Whether Chewing Tobacco or SNUS in the Swedish-speaking Aland (“Ahvenanmaa” in Finnish)Islands. - European regulators said all oral tobacco is dangerous because it contains "particularly large quantities" of cancer-causing chemicals. Only Sweden has an exemption to an EU ban on the smokeless tobacco called snus. In 2004, the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice upheld a ban on the substance, ruling that the dangers of snus merited its being outlawed. The EU executive said it would ask the EU's highest court to charge Finland a fine of €2,029,536 (US$2,875,040) and impose daily fines of €19,828 (US$28,089) per day if it continues to disobey the ban on oral tobacco. The Aland archipelago,situated in the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden, has its own legislation, government and a 30-member Parliament. Finland and Aland also have an agreement that Aland pays its own EU fines. In January 2007 the Aland Islands changed local laws to bow to EU wishes — but the EU said they did not go far enough because they only stopped the snus variety and not other types of oral tobacco, such as chewing tobacco, from entering the market. Finnish media reported from the Aland Islands that following the EU executive's decision, legislators on Tuesday (10/23/2007) began to compile a law to ban all forms of tobacco in the archipelago of 25,000 inhabitants. (International Herald Tribune - Europe)