Nicotine pouches are being legally sold to children and are being made appealing to them with special flavours and packaging mimicking sweets, a trading standards body has said.
In June, it became illegal for single-use vapes to be sold in England to tackle their widespread use by children. However, there is currently no legislation that restricts the age at which you can buy nicotine pouches.
The Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) said the pouches currently fall between “regulatory gaps as they are not regulated as a specific tobacco or nicotine product”.
Nicotine pouches, which contain nicotine, flavouring and sweeteners, are placed in the upper lip, allowing nicotine to be absorbed through the gum. Trading standards officers found they were in plain sight at checkout areas of many stores, with packaging and flavours similar to sweets and so made appealing to children, the CTSI said.
According to a survey by Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) carried out by YouGov, in 2024 only 38% of 11- to 17-year-olds were aware of nicotine pouches, rising to 43% this year.
Duncan Stephenson, the policy and external affairs director at the CTSI, said the prominence of nicotine pouches “very much feels like a game of whack-a-mole”, because “just as one product is dealt with, another emerges.”
Stephenson added: “While Trading Standards is working to ensure that the ban on single disposable vapes is in place, we are coming across new and emerging threats.
“The availability of potentially harmful products being promoted and sold to our children seems never-ending. Nicotine pouches are the latest example, with slick marketing, sweet flavours and colourful packaging that risk appealing to young people, whether intended or not.
“Local Trading Standards teams on the ground are uncovering these risks every day, but we urgently need the powers set out in the tobacco and vapes bill to take urgent and effective action. Strong, proactive regulation is essential to protect children and stop these products from slipping through the cracks.”
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The tobacco and vapes bill, which is currently at the committee stage in the House of Lords, will include legislation to restrict the use of flavours, packaging and advertising of nicotine pouches that might appeal to children, and also dictate where they can be placed within shops.
The CTSI is calling for the bill to be moved up the parliamentary timeline to ensure there is no delay in restrictions on the sale of nicotine pouches to children being implemented.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Our landmark tobacco and vapes bill will ban the sale of nicotine pouches to under-18s and stop vapes and nicotine products from being deliberately promoted and advertised to children.
“The bill will place nicotine pouches under the same advertising restrictions as tobacco and provides powers to regulate their nicotine limits, flavours, packaging and how they are displayed.
“It will stop the next generation from getting hooked on nicotine and put an end to the cycle of addiction and disadvantage.”