Nicotine pouch sales driven by adult use
Nicotine pouches have become very popular in the United States with sales continually increasing. Despite concerns over youth appeal, however, data released by the US Food and Drug Administration suggest that the increase in popularity is being driven by adult use.
According to the latest National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), youth use of nicotine pouches is low and has remained unchanged since the last survey in 2023.
Youth vaping is also at a ten-year-low. Teenage vaping (which was defined as even one puff in the last 30 days) dropped dramatically from 2.13 million (7.7%) to 1.63 million (5.9%). And fewer than 1.6% reported vaping every day. There are half a million fewer teenage vapers in 2024 than there were in 2023. And the number of youth who used e-cigarettes in 2024 is approximately one-third of what it was at its peak in 2019, when over five million youth reported current e-cigarette use.
Adults are using Nicotine Pouches instead of cigarettes
There have been several studies of nicotine pouches and who is most likely to use them. To date, results suggest that these products are most commonly used by adults, who are or were either cigarette smokers or users of smokeless products. These studies also confirm that use of these products by adults significantly outweighs any youth use – a finding that would seem to be confirmed (for the US at least) by the latest NYTS data.
In general, there appears to be a good understanding of the relative risk of nicotine pouches compared to cigarettes, which researchers say means these products have great potential to reduce harm. For other products like vapes, negative risk perceptions proved a barrier to uptake by adult smokers.
Nicotine Pouches use being monitored closely
While nicotine pouches have the potential to reduce harm for current adult smokers, the rapid increase in popularity prompted concerns that we would see a parallel with what happened with vapes. This is particularly important since youth use of vapes rose sharply in a very short space of time (between 2011 and 2015).
But this most recent data suggests that, so far, this is not the case with nicotine pouches. The NYTS data show that youth nicotine pouch use did not change significantly from 2023 (1.5% in 2023 and 1.8% in 2024). And of those middle and high school students who reported current nicotine pouch use, less than a quarter said that they use them every day.
While these figures look very positive, the ideal number is zero. Keeping nicotine products out of the hands of youth is a top priority for Haypp. We do not sell candy flavoured nicotine pouches, and we are proud to be leaders in youth access prevention across all our markets.
NYTS is an annual school-based, self-administered survey of U.S. middle (grades 6–8) and high school (grades 9–12) students conducted Jan. 22 to May 22, 2024.
