A new Tamarind Intelligence survey, published on the World Nicotine Congress website, gives a timely insight into how Members of the European Parliament view novel nicotine products. The survey shows a Parliament that is better informed than before, but also more divided. That division matters, because the next revision of EU tobacco and nicotine legislation will have to deal with a political reality that no longer fits the old tobacco control script.
The most striking finding is that uncertainty has fallen sharply. Only 7 percent of MEPs now say they are unsure about the relative risks of novel nicotine products. But the disappearance of uncertainty has not produced consensus. The group considering new nicotine products at least as harmful, or more harmful, than smoking has increased from 19 to 33 percent.
That is worrying, but not surprising. Factually false and misleading messages, including recent claims from Commissioner Várhelyi suggesting that new nicotine products are equally harmful as cigarettes, have obviously increased confusion. At the same time, the “less harmful” group is forming a strong, science backed majority at 60%. That will most likely become a real challenge for the Commission if it tries to regulate reduced risk products as if combustion and non-combustion were the same thing.
There is also a clear positive signal in the survey. Nicotine pouches are now seen as the least risky novel product category by more than half of surveyed MEPs. This suggests that pouches are starting to receive recognition as a significantly reduced risk product. It is also strange that 9 percent consider new nicotine products more harmful than smoking, while no respondent seems to have labelled cigarettes as the least risky product. That contradiction shows that some views are still driven more by messaging than by true risk assessment.
Another major improvement concerns nicotine itself. Nearly half of MEPs now disagree with the claim that nicotine is as harmful as tobacco. This is a significant gain in basic knowledge. Nicotine is not risk free, but the dangers of nicotine can never reasonably be equated with the risks of tobacco smoking, where combustion is the central driver of disease. Nicotine is present in cigarette smoke and a factor for habit formation, but a minor component for the actual risk.
On the role of products, Pouchforum welcomes the significant increase in MEPs seeing nicotine pouches as a way out of smoking rather than a gateway into it. The Swedish data are difficult to ignore. The Swedish Public Health Agency reports that daily smoking is lowest among 16- to 29-year-olds, at 2,3 percent, while nicotine use remains common. Anyone claiming that nicotine pouches are a gateway to smoking should be able to show where the smokers who supposedly entered through that gateway are. So far, no one has done so.
The disappointment is that support for the nicotine pouch gateway myth has also increased, from 6 to 21 percent. That is a reminder that youth protection is a major concern among law makers and will be the focal point of the upcoming TPD, but it is not an argument for pretending that lower risk products are cigarettes, nor a reason for making up risks that doesn’t seem to have any support in real life statistics. We do agree that underage use is a major concern but should be met with directed efforts such as banning proxy sales. Making disproportional policy based on statistically unlikely scenarios does not benefit anyone.
Finally, more than half of MEPs agree that tobacco free nicotine products should be regulated in the same way as tobacco products. This question is a minefield. All nicotine products should be regulated. Age limits, enforcement against proxy sales and restrictions on marketing to minors are non negotiable. A tax system should reflect risk, and any sales framework sufficient for tobacco should clearly be sufficient for lower risk products.
But nicotine pouches must also be assessed on their own merits. The flavor topic is a good example. Tobacco has its own flavor and can be blended into different taste profiles. A nicotine pouch without flavor is not a neutral equivalent to tobacco. Extending a tobacco flavor ban to nicotine pouches, or forcing artificial tobacco flavor into pouches like has been done in several markets, would be disproportionate and would actively disadvantage a lower risk product compared with products containing natural tobacco.
We believe both MEPs, the value chain and consumers in general support a proper regulatory framework, not prohibition by copy paste. Nicotine pouches should be legal, available to adult smokers and nicotine users, sold through responsible channels, taxed and regulated according to their actual risk.