Nicotine pouches help smokers quit So why should they be banned?

In a video posted on social media, the Canadian Cancer Society recently announced its next target in the war on cancer: nicotine pouches.

A major problem with pouches, the Society explains, is that they are not regulated like tobacco products. In particular, they come in different flavours, which is not legal for tobacco. But why are flavours a problem? Pouches aren't a tobacco product. They contain literally zero tobacco. Why should they be regulated as if they were tobacco?

Flavoured smoking cessation products have existed in Canada for some time. Nicorette, which comes in gums, lozenges, and sprays, offers a variety of flavours, including mint, fresh fruit, cool berry and mild spearmint.

Why is that comparison important? Because Health Canada has approved nicotine pouches as a smoking cessation tool in the same regulatory category as Nicorette products. It is strange that the Cancer Society has such a strong position on one flavoured smoking cessation tool but apparently ignores another. Tobacco is what causes cancer, not nicotine. Which is why cessation tools not containing nicotine are regulated differently than tobacco products.

That young people do use nicotine pouches raises concern that smoking cessation tools may be a gateway to smoking. The evidence suggests that is not true. Extensive research on nicotine pouches concludes they are not very attractive to those who don't already smoke. The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) found that pouches have very limited appeal (1112 per cent) to people who have never consumed tobacco products before, including minors.

Among smokers, on the other hand, or those who use chewing tobacco, interest in nicotine pouches skyrockets to 75 per cent. That should not be surprising: most smokers spend much of their lives trying to quit. Pouches are a potential off-ramp that is exponentially less risky than smoking.

On a harm scale, with 100 representing smoking risk and zero representing not consuming any product with nicotine, the BfR gave nicotine pouches a score of one, exactly the same as the risk from nicotine patches, gums and sprays.

So: pouches are much less risky than smoking, generate little interest among those who don't smoke, and can help many smokers quit. And the Cancer Society has decided this should be its new target? You'd think products that have the potential to reduce cancer rates would be celebrated, not shamed.

In Sweden, low-risk alternatives to tobacco are widespread, part of the country's policy of harm reduction. And Sweden is the only country in Europe, the German BfR researchers point out, where lung cancer isn't at the top of the list for cancer mortality. Lung cancer is also less prevalent in Sweden than anywhere else in Europe. In Canada, by contrast, lung cancer is the leading cancer killer. Well over 20,000 Canadians die from it every year.

The Cancer Society wants the government to either ban nicotine pouches until new regulations are put in place or require that they be sold by prescription only. Nothing could give greater encouragement to the black market. Although pouches have only been legal in Canada for a short time they have been easily available everywhere across the country for several years — so much so that three years ago Health Canada had to issue a health safety information notice about them. Needless to say, illegal pouches are not regulated by any government agency.

The Canadian Cancer Society obviously does good and important work and Canadians should support it generously. But it is wrong on the issue of nicotine pouches. We all know someone who has died because they couldn't quit smoking or didn't quit soon enough. Giving smokers more ways to quit is a good thing, not a bad thing.