Benefits

A breakthrough for public health in tackling tobacco-related harm

Traditionally, the public health approach to promoting smoking cessation was to tell smokers to ‘quit or die’. But all too often, this approach fails. Despite most smokers’ desire to quit, only 4-7% succeed. But it does not have to be this way. As Michael Russell, the inventor of the nicotine patch, noted back in 1974: “People smoke for the nicotine but they die from the tar”.

With nicotine pouches, consumers still reap the benefit of the nicotine, but without the tar. Consider this graph depicting the relative risks of nicotine-containing products, placed along a harm continuum. Note that ‘Oral Products’ are at least 95% less harmful.

“

People smoke for the nicotine but they die from the tar.”

-Michael Russell

Easy to use and discrete

Many adult consumers of snus - people already familiar with how oral nicotine products work – may be attracted to ONDS because of the lack of tobacco and as well as flavours and since they can get their nicotine delivered in the same way as with snus. The nicotine pouches are small, and fit discretely in the gums behind the upper lip. They do not need refrigeration, do not require any batteries, and they can be disposed of normally in the bin.

Reduced harm to self and others

With oral nicotine delivery systems (ONDS), there is no second-hand smoke, no lingering unpleasant odours on clothing and hair, and maybe even mouths that dentists will find cleaner and healthier.

Reduced mortality: the Swedish example

In Sweden where snus use has been displacing smoking, adult daily smoking prevalence has already fallen to 5% – compared to a European Union average of 26%. Yet, snus is still banned in all European Union countries (except Sweden), a fact made even more curious after a study by the Swedish Institutet för Tobaksstudier, or Institute for Tobacco Studies, using data from the WHO’s 2012 Global Report on Mortality Attributable to Tobacco7 , concluded that if other EU countries practiced the same tobacco consumption patterns as Sweden – encouraging smokers to switch from cigarettes to snus, for example – no less than 355,000 lives per year could have been saved, most of them men over the age of 30. In particular, Swedish men have the European Union’s lowest level of tobacco-related mortality, of any cause.