The World Health Organization issued a strong warning Friday over the rapid global expansion of nicotine pouch products, decrying the tobacco industry’s aggressive marketing tactics to hook young people.
Nicotine pouches, which are small sachets placed between the gum and lip that release nicotine through the lining of the mouth, are rapidly reshaping the global tobacco and nicotine market, the WHO said in a fresh report.
“Governments are seeing the use of these products spread quickly, especially among adolescents and young people who are being aggressively targeted by deceptive tactics,” said Etienne Krug, head of WHO’s health determinants, promotion and prevention department.
The products, which contain nicotine and typically also sweet flavouring, “are engineered for addiction,” he warned in a statement.
Often marketed as “modern,” “discreet” and “tobacco free,” nicotine pouches are spreading across countries so fast that regulations are failing to keep pace, WHO warned in its first report on the products.
$7-billion market
Sales of nicotine pouches had reached over 23 billion units in 2024 — an increase of over 50 per cent from the previous year, it said.
And the global nicotine pouch market was worth nearly $7 billion last year, it added, with sales highest and swelling in North America.
One popular nicotine pouch brand that had been offered in around 9,000 U.S. retail shops in 2017 was on sale in over 150,000 retail shops by 2024, it pointed out.
Outside the United States, the pouches are most popular in European countries like Germany, Poland and Sweden, but are forecast to be fast-growing in a range of other countries, including Pakistan.
“This is not simply a market trend; it’s a rapidly evolving public health challenge,” Vinayak Prasad, who heads WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative, said to reporters.
WHO emphasized that nicotine itself is “highly addictive” and is particularly harmful for young people whose brains are still developing.
Nicotine exposure during adolescence can affect brain development, including impacts on attention and learning, and increases the likelihood of long-term dependence and use, it said.
The report highlighted well-documented health risks associated with nicotine use, including for cardiovascular risk and mental health.
Candy flavours
It slammed widespread industry tactics to appeal to young people, including sleek packaging and flavours like bubble gup and gummy bears.
Influencer marketing and heavy social media promotion was also used, as was sponsorship of concerts and sporting events like Formula 1, it said.
And it decried messaging promoting the possibility of “discreet” use and avoiding detection by parents and teachers, with slogans including: “Forget the rules,” and “Anytime, anywhere,” alongside images of places where smoking is typically banned, like restaurants and public transport.
Prasad slammed efforts by the companies to present nicotine pouches as safer than traditional cigarettes, and even as tools to help smokers quit.
“If these products were truly intended primarily as smoking cessation tools for adult smokers, why are they being marketed with candy flavours?” he asked.
“Nicotine pouches are not risk-free products and should not be marketed in ways that create a new generation of addiction.”
Jorge Alday, head of global tobacco industry watchdog STOP, agreed, describing nicotine pouches as “little seeds of an epidemic that the tobacco companies are planting everywhere.”
In a statement sent to AFP, he warned that “nicotine pouch marketing today looks a lot like what we saw 10 years ago before the youth vaping epidemic took off.”
WHO urged countries to step up regulations to address the issue.
Currently, around 160 countries have no specific regulations for nicotine pouches.
Only 16 ban their sale, while 32 others have some regulations, it said.
The report called for among other things bans or strong restrictions on flavours in nicotine pouches, and bans on advertising, promotion and sponsorship for the products.
It also urged strong age-verification and retail controls, clear health warnings and plain packaging, and steep taxes to reduce affordability of the products.
