Oral nicotine pouches are becoming a pathway to nicotine use for young people

Topic

Emerging Tobacco Products

Subtopic

RELATED MATERIALS

What is Zyn and what are oral nicotine pouches?

Huge rise in nicotine sold through oral nicotine pouches

A growing number of teens and young adults are initiating nicotine with oral pouches like Zyn, On!, and Velo. The rate of pouch-driven initiation among nicotine-naive respondents aged 15–30 years more than doubled between 2021 and 2024, according to a Truth Initiative study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

While nicotine initiation with oral pouches — and the use of multiple products including pouches — has increased, it’s important to keep this growth in perspective. Less than 2% of middle and high school students use nicotine pouches, and although national data indicates that pouch use is slightly higher among young adults, it remains relatively low with e-cigarettes prevailing as the product of choice among young people.

Nicotine Pouch and vape on orange background

In addition, nicotine initiation only with oral pouches remains low compared to initiation with other products. However, this sharp rise in pouch-driven initiation should act as a warning sign, especially given how quickly the market is growing.

Key takeaways from this study:

Pouch-driven nicotine initiation rose sharply. Among young people who had never used nicotine, the rate of starting nicotine use with pouches was more than twice as high in 2022–2024 as it was in 2021–2023, while the rate of initiating with e-cigarettes declined over the same period.
Multi-product use is common among pouch users. Nearly two-thirds of respondents who started using pouches also used another nicotine product during the study period, usually e-cigarettes.
Young pouch users are chasing a nicotine "buzz." The most common reasons given for using pouches were to get a "buzz," a perceived reduction in harm compared with e-cigarettes or cigarettes, and peer or family use. Very few cited quitting other products as their main reason, and even fewer reported flavors as the primary motivating factor.

Young people are increasingly using multiple nicotine products at once

These findings provide further evidence that dual- or poly-use of nicotine products, especially with e-cigarettes, is on the rise among young people.

The use of multiple nicotine products is associated with greater nicotine dependence and increased likelihood of adverse health effects, introducing more risk compared to using one product.

Stronger FDA regulation needs to account for this pattern and remove illegal, flavored, and high-nicotine vapes and oral pouches from the market. These products contain flavors which are appealing to young people and provide more nicotine at a lower cost.