Media Watch 8 December 2025

 

A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News investigation dusts off its magnifying glass and turns it on nicotine pouches… and finds what, basically, every major newspaper article about them has, over and over.

CBC News on pouches

While the “experts”, location, and finer points might change, there is a very fixed news article on nicotine pouches that larger news organisations write. The moralising, Big Tobacco conspiracy theories, scaremongering, forced attempts to link them to sweets, and colour story from a hooked teen that we’ve all grown to know and love are thankfully all there. Heaven forbid, we could get a nuanced and considered take on pouches.

Anyway, let’s take a look at the article.

Black market

The main thrust of the CBC News investigation centres around the author’s inability to wrap their head around the concept of black markets. They collectively seem absolutely baffled that, despite the federal government’s decision to ban the sale of nicotine pouches anywhere but pharmacies, the product is still being sold in convenience stores across Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax.

Yes, grown adults were able to walk into these shops and purchase a range of pouches, including popular PMI brand ZYN with doses as high as 15mg. CBC sees this 15mg as “high dosage”, seemingly unaware that many black market pouches go well beyond 50mg.

The highest strength available in Canada is ZONNIC at 4mg. So, by comparison, 15mg does seem high. However, it gives the article a sort of quaint edge that you don’t expect from hard-hitting reporting or whatever the hell this is meant to be.

Unexplored reasons

What CBC doesn’t discuss, or seems aware of, is that woefully overregulated products can force people into the black market. While many people consider 4mg adequate, these strengths won’t work for most consumers.

Indeed, consumers weren’t really considered when ZONNIC underwent 2 years of rigorous trials to become Canada’s only legally available pouch. Health Canada imposed these restrictions, despite market demand for more options. As a result, the market is forced to look elsewhere and roll the dice with unregulated or perhaps even counterfeit products.

The rest

The rest of the article is the kind of thing Media Watch has commented on many times before. There are the usual thin claims about nicotine’s harms to developing brains. Evidence suggests this is true of rats in highly excessive trials; whether it extends to humans is far less clear. As usual, what that risk entails in any firm sense is omitted—likewise, links to supporting studies.

Then, predictably, there is the anecdotal lead from formerly nicotine-dependent youth. The stories are always so weird to me. The earnestness, the naive early adoption to fit in, the escalating habit, the teenage drama. In this one, the subject manages to cold turkey their “addiction” in two months. Nicotine, of course, is the drug tobacco control tries to tell us is as addictive as heroin.

Final thoughts

This article isn’t the worst I’ve read on pouches. It just doesn’t bring enough to the table. I just wish more news agencies would give pouches their due, acknowledge that they’re going to eliminate lethal smoking among this generation, and even petition for sensible regulations that include adequate strengths and broader availability.