The new Eurobarometer survey on Attitudes of Europeans towards tobacco and related products is out. Based on face-to-face interviews with EU citizens conducted throughout May and June last year, the survey provides an interesting snapshot into the use and perception of harm-reduction products like nicotine pouches.
While there is a lot of data to pour over, I’ll keep this focused on nicotine pouches.
#1. There is no nicotine pouch epidemic
Read the fevered headlines, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that nicotine pouches were tearing through inner-city neighbourhoods in a repeat of the 1980s US crack epidemic. However, data does not support this position.
95% of EU citizens have never tried a nicotine pouch. Of those who have, 50% used it once or twice, while 25% have stopped.
Even among 15-24 year olds, nicotine pouch use is minimal. Only 2% of teens and young adults surveyed use the product every day or every week.
#2. Bad public messaging around pouches increases health disparities
The small amount of pouch usage that is happening in Europe is clustered around people who would describe themselves as “middle class” or “upper middle class”.
Per the report, 33% of self-described “working class” and 26% of “lower middle class” respondents currently smoke cigarettes.
Misinformation and disinformation about smoking alternative products are a major barrier to health equality. Members of lower-income communities are almost twice as likely to smoke cigarettes as their higher-income equivalents.
Smoking is a class issue. It’s a litmus test for whether politicians practise what they preach. If a party does not support harm reduction, they’re not for the people and they should stop pretending they are.
#3. Combustible tobacco is where it starts
Per the survey, 91% of EU citizens' nicotine use started with combustible tobacco. With 3% saying they don’t know where they started, the remaining first products were e-cigarettes (3%), heated tobacco (1%), and snus (1%).
It’s getting very hard to float the Gateway Theory Fantasy at this point.
The encouraging news here is that just under two-thirds of 15-24-year-olds start with cigarettes or rolled tobacco. Smoking alternative products like vapes, snus, and nicotine pouches offer a relatively harmless refuge that stops people from smoking before they start.
#4. Aggressive marketing is a myth
Tobacco control operatives incessantly preach that Big Tobacco is aggressively targeting children with nicotine pouches. This collective fantasy demonstrates a total lack of understanding about what marketing is and how it works. It’s also demonstrably false.
Instead, almost three-quarters of 15-24-year-olds say they’ve never seen an advertisement or promotion for nicotine pouches. Just 3% of that cohort say they see ads for pouches “often”.
As I’ve said before, if Big Tobacco are “targeting” this age group, it is one of the most spectacularly bad marketing campaigns in living memory.
#5. Peers, not marketing, is how people hear about products
As you can see from the table above, 15-24-year-olds are 77% more likely to hear about heated tobacco and nicotine pouches through friends rather than advertisements.
The WHO will probably see this data as a mandate to ban friendships. It’s also worth noting that “exposure” to these products does not translate into use. As it turns out, adults have self-determination and free will to make their own choices.
Conclusion
The Eurobarometer Survey is an opportunity for the WHO and its various hangers-on to get a grip on reality. However, the data has trampled on and destroyed many of the daily hallucinations these people have about alternative smoking products, so don’t expect widespread headlines about the report.
