A new nicotine product is becoming increasingly popular among young people and parents won’t be able to tell if their child is using it because they are basically invisible.
Nicotine pouches – called Zyns, snus or small lip pillows – have become fashionable thanks to social networks.
They look like little tea bags filled with nicotine, with flavors including mint, bubblegum, and mango.
Placed discreetly between the lip and gum, nicotine is absorbed directly into the bloodstream.
They look like little tea bags filled with nicotine, with flavors including mint, bubblegum, and mango.
Matilda, 18, and Jacob, 20, have tested the bags.
“In high school, a lot of people did it and that’s where I initially tried them,” Matilda told A Current Affair.
Jacob said the bags could be removed discreetly.
“People don’t really blink at this, instead seeing clouds coming out,” he said.
“A lot of my peers, especially in college, are doing it quite a bit.”
Becky Freeman, an associate professor of public health at the University of Sydney, who has been studying vape use among teenagers, says she is concerned about the bags.
“The goal is for it to be discreet, smell good and get you addicted to nicotine,” he said.
‘Children in focus groups keep mentioning bags.
“They buy them in tobacconists, they buy them online and they are kind of a new trend.”
He said they were not legal products in Australia.
Chewing tobacco was banned in Australia in 1991.
Jacob, 20, has tried nicotine pouches. Image: A Current Affair
Matilda, 18, first tried the bags in high school. Image: A Current Affair
But tobacconists say sales of nicotine pouches are booming.
“It’s mainly sold online, so anyone can get it online, but we take it to stores because a lot of people ask for it,” said one worker.
In fact, two of the largest tobacco companies, Philip Morris and British American Tobacco, have created their own brands.
In 2022, the Therapeutic Goods Administration seized fewer than 110,000 units of nicotine pouches.
Last year, there were almost 3.5 million units.
So far this year, the federal health department said about 5.1 million units were under evaluation for seizure, as well as 168,000 cans of bags already seized.
Tobacconists say sales of nicotine pouches are booming
Jody Morgan, a chemical toxicologist at the University of Wollongong, will soon begin a study on the bags to learn more about their toxicity.
He said a bag of medium-strength nicotine contained about 10 mg of nicotine.
An average cigarette contains about 12 mg of cigarette, but smokers only inhale part of it.
“Only about 1.5 mg of that is absorbed because most of it is burned off when you light up,” Dr. Morgan said.
Since the market is unregulated in Australia, bags have been found with 20 times the strength of a cigarette.
“Long-term use of these can cause some gum problems, particularly gum ulceration, and some open sores can appear that don’t heal,” Dr. Morgan said.
“It may cause a burning sensation.”
Philip Morris, which makes Zyns, is facing a lawsuit in the United States for claiming the product is addictive and harmful to young people.
The Federal Department of Health said the government was “aware and concerned about the increasing profile of nicotine pouches being advertised and supplied in Australia”.
“Targeting children is particularly worrying given the risks of nicotine to public health,” a spokesperson said.