Melchior researches the situation in Belgium, a country with about 7,000 Swedish expatriates, and she does find stores that sell snus. Customers give an address in Sweden (where the sale is not banned) and an invoice is sent to that address. The snus is then delivered to the store in Belgium. Only the sale is banned in Europe, not possession or moving larger amounts cross the borders, and technically the sale transaction has been made in Sweden.
This article dates from 2008, and related to the black market of snus in Belgium.
This "customs-ban" has already been discussed in German snus-forums. Some forum-members had shipments seized since around October 2010.
Obviously there have been changes made recently to the tobacco laws, EU-wide, but only regarding the advertising of tobacco products. Some ill-informed customs-officers now probably have seen the tobacco-law for the first time, including the old, unchanged snus-article and misinterpreted it as an import-ban on snus. I also had to drive to the customs office once in December, but got the package handed out with no problems.
I think that the actual ban is first and foremost a measure of precaution initiated by SM and the webshops. Nonetheless, something else is going on for sure. The coke-snuffers in Brussels probably want to stop snus before it gets too big and really threatens the cigarette-tax-revenues.
I hate to speculate and wish that someone from Swedish Match finds time finally to comment on the situation.
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