‘It felt like smoking 20 cigarettes at once’: how Britain got hooked on nicotine pouches

‘The first time I tried it I pretty much passed out. I felt like I had smoked 20 cigarettes at once. I had a nicotine high and was really not OK.’

Harry*, 28, from London, is talking about the first time he tried a nicotine pouch. You might have spotted people using these yourself, catching punters in the pub slotting little white pouches into their gums. From afar, these small pockets of powder could easily be confused with chewing gum. Often packaged up into palm-sized round tubs, usually with bright, colourful branding and in confection-like flavours like strawberry lychee, banana ice and bubblegum, and you’ve probably noticed them for sale in every other off-licence, vape shop and supermarket. There are advertisements for the products appearing all over London, with ads spotted on the side of black cabs and in tube carriages. Or perhaps you’ve been convinced by a pouch-loving friend to try one yourself – which often results in an episode of dizziness, nausea, throwing up or even passing out, in Harry’s case. 

Although frequently referred to as snus, nicotine pouches on sale in Britain are not quite the same as the Scandinavian product due to it being illegal for them to contain tobacco here. That said – lip pillows, chinos, upper deckys, niccy pods, whatever you want to call them – the strongest products for sale on the UK high street can contain up to 10 cigarettes worth of nicotine per pouch. They’re also highly addictive and carry potential long-term health effects including heart disease and a higher susceptibility to gum disease and tooth decay. With disposable vapes set to be banned by summer 2025, could pouches become the next big thing?

Booming business 

Nicotine pouches were only properly introduced to the UK market in 2019 and use is still pretty low: data by Action on Smoking Health (ASH) says that just one percent of adults use them currently and five percent have tried them. However, they are becoming increasingly popular among young people. One report suggests that teenagers as young as 16 are hooked on them, while they are becoming increasingly ubiquitous on university campuses and in school classrooms – probably down to the fact that once in the mouth, they are easily concealed.

The brands are positioning this product as something for young people, for when you’re out, socialising, and having a good time

‘I have seen a notable increase in the use of nicotine pouches among younger adults in our community,’ says Birmingham-based GP Deepali Misra-Sharp – something she calls ‘concerning’. She adds: ‘Nicotine pouches are marketed as a more discreet and potentially “safer” form of nicotine consumption, which has contributed to their uptake among students.’ But use of the pouches as a stop-smoking aid is still widely underresearched, with little known about their long-term effects. ‘Tobacco-free nicotine pouches are fairly new in the UK and currently are not recommended as a stop smoking aid, due to a lack of research on how safe or effective they are for stopping smoking,’ says the NHS website.

And the sales numbers speak for themselves. In the UK, brands Velo, Nordic Spirit and Zyn lead the charge on popularity. In August, Velo owners British American Tobacco said pouches were its fastest growing new category, with sales up by more than 48 percent in 2024 compared to 2023. Philip Morris International (PMI), which owns Zyn, said the sale of pouches helped to increase its annual profit forecast, with Zyn now available in 30 countries including the UK. Meanwhile, new brands like XQS (made by Danish tobacco giant Scandinavian Tobacco Group) and IVG (created by British online vape retailer of the same name), are arriving to a market that is ripe for the picking. 

A viral hit 

Hazel Cheeseman, chief executive of ASH, says that while nicotine pouch use in the UK is still low, if they aren’t more regulated soon they could become widespread in the same way that vapes have. Priced at around £5 for a tub of roughly 20 pouches, stocking up on niccy pods is much cheaper than buying a pack of cigarettes. Meanwhile, their eye-catching containers in appealing sweet flavours are already for sale on easily accessible shelves in all the mainstream supermarkets, which Cheeseman points out is the most common way that young people are exposed to the products. ‘Products are often placed close to confectionery,’ Misra-Sharp says, and sometimes they are stocked on the shop floor’s medicine aisle.  

‘There is already some indication that nicotine pouches are drawing interest from non-smokers, particularly younger demographics, due to their discreet use and attractive flavours,’ says Misra-Sharp. ‘The trend with e-cigarettes was initially similar, and over time, we observed an increase in usage among young people who had never smoked before.’ It was vaping’s enticing flavours like watermelon, peach and ‘blue razz’ that attracted youngsters to e-cigs in the first place. Nicotine pouches could do the same. 

The trend with e-cigarettes was initially similar; over time we saw an increase in use among young people who had never smoked before

This isn’t so surprising given that the pouches are already an online sensation, with videos about their use on TikTok and Instagram gaining hundreds of thousands of views. Accounts like Snus Boys, a British supplier of pouches – whose TikTok page posts funny memes and sketches about using pouches – encourage viewers to try ‘three upper deckys’ to more than 300,000 followers. Then there are brands like Velo, which collaborate with fashion and lifestyle influencers to film typically innocuous ‘a day in the life’ videos: influencers clutch a little tub of nicotine as they sip their takeaway coffee, pose for a ’fit check and browse glossy fashion magazines. Offline, brands have used aggressive marketing campaigns involving giving out thousands of free samples in ‘high footfall areas’, and in places typically associated with young people, like music festivals. 

‘I was in Pop Brixton having some food and a girl approached me with a free sample of nicotine pouches, so I took them to try it out,’ 22-year-old Roma tells Time Out. ‘I went to a gig after, I put one in and felt really sick and immediately had to take it out. I felt really lightheaded and it didn’t wear off for quite a while.’

Another Londoner tells Time Out they see discarded pouches ‘everywhere on the ground in east London’, which is particularly concerning when they are walking their dog which loves to ‘hoover up’ everything on the floor. Nicotine poisoning is a growing problem for dog owners and ingesting the pouches can be lethal to furry friends.

‘Free samples have been a very significant part of their marketing strategy,’ explains Cheeseman, who says that these advertising tactics are ‘deliberately youth oriented’. But how do the brands get away with it? In fact, there are no age restrictions when it comes to buying nicotine pouches in the UK. Because they don’t contain tobacco, the pouches are able to be sold as lifestyle products, just like any ordinary food and drink item. They are also able to be marketed under the same rules. ‘The brands are positioning this product as a product for young people, for when you’re out, socialising, and having a good time,’ Cheeseman says. ‘It’s not remotely being positioned as an alternative to smoking, which is really the only valuable thing about it.’

If you’re having a night out you can whack strong ones in one after the other, which is good fun

So what actually is the appeal? Some people claim they can help with productivity and energy, while others use them as a vaping or smoking alternative, still getting their all-important nicotine fix. For some, like Harry, it’s a mixture of the two: once he switched to a weaker dose, he started to enjoy the ‘gentle buzz’ he got from the pouches. Now, he consumes roughly five a day. 

‘I was a social smoker, then a social vaper, then a habitual vaper,’ says Harry. ‘I use pouches now because it’s a nicer alternative to habitually smoking and vaping. It doesn’t smell and you can do it throughout the day whenever you like. It’s very discreet.’

Then there’s the aspect of getting that much sought-after niccy-rush. ‘If you’re having a night out you can whack them in one after the other, the strong ones, which is good fun,’ says Harry. ‘It feels like a more refined dopamine hit than sucking nicotine into your lungs [via a vape or cigarette] because it goes directly into the bloodstream.’

‘You do need to control the amount that you use it,’ Harry adds, explaining that he sometimes feels more comfortable with one in his mouth, than not. ‘I don’t like the idea of being addicted for life, but it doesn’t seem to carry the same health detriments as vaping, and it’s definitely not as bad as smoking tobacco.’

Ultimately, we can’t be mad at adult smokers and vapers for using these as a nicotine alternative – it’s their life, after all – but their blatant marketing as a fashionable lifestyle product, and the lack of age restrictions, is a cause for concern. 

When Time Out reached out to the companies selling nicotine pouches in the UK, a British American Tobacco spokesperson said: ‘We are clear that our tobacco and nicotine products are for adults only and should never be used by those who are underage… We require brand partners to be adults and that their audience is predominantly adult. We also require all our partners to market our products responsibly.

‘We have also been actively calling for regulation including a minimum age of sale. Since launching, we have championed an industry code of conduct, which imposes restrictions on nicotine pouch packaging designs, communications and sale activities.’

A spokesperson from Japan Tobacco International (JTI), which owns Nordic Spirit, said: ‘JTI is fully committed to the principle that under 18s should never use or access nicotine-containing products. Nordic Spirit is never promoted as a way for people to quit smoking.’

They added: ‘We welcome regulation that prohibits sale of nicotine products to minors but have concerns about some aspects of the legislation that could needlessly damage an emerging category and risk undermining the UK’s success in promoting smoking alternatives if passed.

‘Nordic Spirit is present at a number of festivals and events throughout the UK as a way for existing adult smokers to learn more about the product… our presence adheres to a voluntary regulatory framework which governs the promotion and packaging of nicotine pouches, and has a particular focus on youth access prevention.’

The disposable vape ban will come into action on June 1, 2025. Misra-Sharp thinks this ‘could result in even higher uptake of pouches, particularly among people who may not have previously considered nicotine.’ Cheeseman expects that the Government’s new Tobacco and Vapes bill, set to come into action in 2025, will ban the advertising of all nicotine-based products to children and in public places, and will also bring in age restrictions on buying pouches. But given that lots of young Brits are already hooked on the products, this might be too little too late. 

As Cheeseman says: ‘If vaping has taught us anything, it’s much harder to address the problem once it has grown into something bigger.’