BACKGROUND AND IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES: In the summer of 2023, Canada’s antiquated tobacco and nicotine framework allowed for the approval as a NRT of Zonnic, a nicotine pouch distributed by BAT’s Canadian subsidiary. The widespread promotion which ensued included online lifestyle advertising and point-of sale ads focused on playful messaging, packaging and flavours. No regulation banned sale to minors and the manufacturer chose to sell it through convenience stores in the provinces where NRT sales are not restricted to pharmacies. Within weeks, credible reports of the product’s appeal and uptake by youth surfaced.
INTERVENTION OR RESPONSE: Health groups united in a call for a national response. Following observed unhindered purchases by young people, Quebec’s Order of Pharmacists called on its members to place the product behind the counter. The province of British Columbia adopted similar regulations.
The Federal Government used a budget bill to gain new regulatory powers. By August 2024, a ministerial order restricted the sale of all NRTs to pharmacies and required that pouches and any new NRTs be kept behind the pharmacists’ counter. Flavours other than mint/menthol and advertising directed at youth or not clearly directed at cessation were prohibited and packaging now requires a warning.
RESULTS AND IMPACT: Nationally, swift interventions to address the sale and marketing of a new nicotine product to the market required the use of unusual and arbitrary legislative levers. Canada’s national regulatory oversight over new nicotine products remains unclear, and ill-suited to manage the tobacco industry’s evolving product.
CONCLUSIONS: Canada’s nicotine pouch saga serves as a reminder of how unmodernized tobacco and vaping product laws are not robust enough to tackle the rapidly evolving products marketed by the tobacco industry. A national nicotine framework would provide the policies and roadmap to improved oversight and responses to products that can sustain or fuel nicotine addiction.