Media Watch: Biz Times in Pakistan Sounds a Misleading Alarm on Pouches

Pakistan is one of the more interesting markets for nicotine pouches. The country has an existing predisposition to oral nicotine; however, it is usually in the form of highly toxic and cancerous products like naswar, paan, and gutka.

Pouches, especially the British American Tobacco (BAT) product VELO, are making an impact in the region despite generally unfavourable and often misleading press coverage.

Let’s take a look at a Biz Times investigation into flavouring chemicals in VELO pouches in the region.

The study

Pakistan is VELO’s third-largest global market. As such, the BAT product has a decent foothold in the country’s overall oral nicotine market. The study in question examined 10 popular VELO flavours sold in Karachi, Pakistan’s capital, in 2022.

While VELO sells pouches worldwide, they tend to adjust flavours to suit local tastes and preferences. To give you an idea of the diversity of flavour, some of the VELO flavours under question include Paan Rush, Exotic Black, Elaichi Blast and Urban Vibe.

This image, from a Global Tobacco Control infographic, gives you an idea of the makeup of these pouches, with OFC standing for other flavour chemicals.

Now, because they[re reporting on nicotine pouches, it won’t come as a shock to hear that the very inclusion of flavours has some tobacco control groups up in arms. Simple marketing concepts like tailoring products for local tastes magically become a masterclass in targeting youth, rather than an attempt to make products that people will like; such is the brain rot among these people.

The study reports that all tested Velo products contained “measurable” levels of flavour chemicals such as benzyl alcohol, menthol, α‑terpineol, and carvone, with some variants showing particularly high overall levels of these chemicals. Naturally, outlets like the Biz Times suggest that “flavour and marketing restrictions could help reduce use among youth in Pakistan” because many of these chemicals are unregulated in the region. But what’s really going on here?

Are these flavours dangerous?

The thing with the Biz News and other outlets’ coverage is that they’ve turned the idea of something being unregulated in Pakistan into the implication that they are dangerous. However, the study itself does not say that the levels are dangerous. Indeed, many of these flavourings are legal to include in pouches in the UK, Sweden, Switzerland, much of the Nordic region and several EU states.

Instead, the attack line seems to be to suggest VELO ingredients are some Wild West formulation. But these arguments fall flat without robust data that suggest harm, especially when smoking rates for males in Pakistan as high as around 30%, and smokeless products like naswar, paan, and gutka sitting at around 9% among adults.

Pakistan media and health groups seem to be falling into a familiar trap where they obsess over youth use of low-harm products at the expense of their adult population. It begs the question: if you care about young people’s quality of life, why don’t you care about the parents and grandparents that will raise and protect them?

This jaundiced world view is clear in the below quote from Syed Ali Wasif Naqvi from the Sustainable Development Policy Institute:

This kind of nonsense is so transparently infused with WHO anti-nicotine rhetoric. It’s not about the health of Pakistanis, it’s about taking a cudgel to evil Big Tobacco. That said, it’s hardly surprising that this sort of thing flies in the region. As we covered at the time, a survey from a few years back suggests that almost 9 in 10 Pakistani doctors believe nicotine causes cancer, with around 80% mistakenly believing nicotine causes COPD and cardiovascular disease.