EU to EU snus mail ban. UPDATED: 5 April 2011

Updated 10 September 2011: As I get several emails about this, I wanted to clarify about which stores ship to the EU and what they ship. Northerner.com ships a variety of snus to the EU, as does OdensSnus.com. You do have to go through some steps on the site, I believe, I haven't checked it out but I have friends in the EU who say they can get snus this way. So if you're an EU customer looking to get snus, currently at this time this is the only way you can get snus to the EU.

Updated 5 April 2011: Today, this from Northerner.com to EU Snusers:
EU CUSTOMERS FIGHT FOR SNUS - DRAMATIC EVENT IN SWEDEN TOOK PLACE MARCH 22ND - On the March 22nd the Swedish Custom stormed one of our competitor office and closed down the website. The two Swedish owners; one women, mother of two six year old twins and one retired man undergoing treatment for skin cancer is now facing prison for up to six years for selling Snus from Sweden to another EU country. Take a look at the two products below, can you see the difference? The first one is "Snus" which is illegal in EU and the other "Makla" is legal. Don't you think it's strange the way EU handle tobacco products? Snus is 98% safer than smoking and five times less harmful than Makla. Make a difference today! help yourself and the two persons avoiding prison for a product that should be legal in the EU by contacting your EU commissioner (link) and/or the EU Health Minister, John Dalli (link).

I will add that the lady he is speaking about is a very nice, kind woman. I've spoken with her a few times over the years and this isn't fair to happen to her. I'd like to see any EU snusers who read Snubie.com get involved with this!

Updated 30 March 2011: Today, this from Northerner.com's Facebook Page,

"Hi guys, know this is tough times both for you and for us. Sorry we don't have much info for you. Have some bad news :( We're not allowed to ship Swedish Match products from our warehouse in the US to EU anymore. The good news is that we have until Friday. After that no more SwedishMatch snus can be shipped to EU.
This at least gives you a little time stock up. We're very sorry about this. Best Regards, Northerner".

So apparently Northerner.com will still ship snus to the EU from their US warehouse, but SM has requested of them that they don't ship their products. They have until Friday though, so if you live in the EU this is a good time to stock up on those products.

Updated 28 March 2011: Not much info coming forth at this time, but a few things. Many EU snusers are considering a pilgrimage to Sweden to stock up. Snusify mentioned today on SnusOn "I called the UK Customs and Excise department today to clarify a few things. So yes definitely if you physically purchase tobacco in another EU country (as long as its not from the duty free shops in the airports) you have already paid the correct duty. You are allowed to bring backup upto 3KG of tobacco that is approx 65 cans of loose snus or 124 cans of 24g portion cans." So if you're considering that venture stock up as much as you can, because who knows if/when this will blow over and we're still facing the Tobacco Directive. Might be a good time for folks to take a trip down to Sweden.

26 March 2011: I woke up this morning to an inbox full (yes, I mean FULL) of emails about a ban of snus being mailed within the EU from the EU. I thought to myself, "What BS is this?" With PACT in the US we had ample warning about something and it seems like this suddenly sprung up over night. I worked the Google on the Internet Machine much to no avail, no articles or press releases to be found. Larry from SnusCENTRAL wrote up an article here - http://www.snuscentral.org/latest-snus-news/eu-swedish-snus-ban.html which speaks about it. To summarize. The website SnusWorldWide owned by World Wide Snus AB was shut down and all their stuff jacked by the EU, occuring after close of business on Friday (in Sweden). Apparently some Finnish cancer group filed a lawsuit against them and won. The EU Tobacco Directive still hasn't passed/isn't finalized so this doesn't have anything to do with that. So anyways, none of the webstores are shipping snus within the EU. I've heard Snus.de is but haven't had confirmation of that yet.

I don't know if the other webstores shut down EU shipments to cover what could be a potential similar outcome, or were issued an angry letter from the EU telling them to stop shipping within the EU pending further investigation. It's 8pm in Sweden right now so everyone has probably gone home for the day. Hopefully some information will come forward about this soon. Northerner.com posted this announcement this morning: "Unfortunately, we are no longer able to offer products from our EU warehouse to customers within the EU territory. Customers within the EU can order from our US warehouse instead. We will provide more details regarding this change in policy as soon as possible."

I'm still waiting on responses from folks I know to find out some details/news about this. Keep an eye on this article and I'll post updates as I receive them.