Joseph Hart 20 February 2025

 

Drug education charity DSM Foundation has released a new survey about substance use among year 15 to 18-year-olds in the UK. For the first time, the charity has included nicotine pouches in its annual review, finding that 46% of respondents say they’re one of the most used substances among their peers.

So, how should we interpret these results, and what do they mean for pouches in the UK?

How many kids are using pouches?

Just slightly less than half of year 11 to 13 students in the UK say they or their peers use nicotine pouches. While this number seems high, it’s worth putting it into context against other substances on the list and other survey data.

The DSMF survey asked the question, “Which are the main substances people in your year group use, if they do?” Here are a few of the highlighted answers.

  • Vaping: 96%
  • Alcohol: 91%
  • Cigarettes: 67%
  • Cannabis 66%

Other substances, such as ketamine, cocaine, nitrous oxide, MDMA and magic mushrooms, appear at between 10% and 20%.

While the 46% number for nicotine pouches seems high, it’s worth considering other surveys on youth usage. For example, recent research from ASH and the IoPPN at Kings College Hospital found that just 1% of 11-to 18-year-olds used nicotine pouches.

Conference room with diverse educators and health professionals discussing substance use among youth.

So, what could explain the glaring discrepancies? Well, firstly, the survey is about the perception of use rather than use itself. In a year group of 100 or 200 kids, only a handful need to use pouches occasionally — or talk about using pouches occasionally — to give this impression.

The mere awareness of pouches within a peer group is not enough to suggest widespread use. Again, for example, while two-thirds of respondents to the DSM survey suggested that cigarettes are popular among peers, youth smoking is at around 12%, according to government statistics.

Perceptions of harms

The survey respondents also talked about what substances were “Not OK to Use”. Again, pouches appear surprisingly high on this list, just beaten out by vaping, alcohol, cigarettes, and smoked cannabis. Interestingly, edible cannabis was seen as less harmful to users. Having once fallen asleep for 36 hours in an Amsterdam hotel room after taking edibles, I’m not sure that I’d agree with their assessment.

What I do find interesting is that nicotine pouches were the main thrust of the press release about the survey. Despite alcohol, cigarettes, and cannabis being more common and obviously more harmful, DSMF seems to be more concerned about pouches. Have these other substances lost their lustre when it comes to cutting through the noise? Is it a funding thing? It’s hard to say.

Overall, having studied the DSMF resource sheets, I find them free of the hyperbole and scaremongering you’d get from similar organisations. They seem sincere in their mission to provide factual information to young people, allowing them to make more informed decisions about their health.

While it’s helpful to have data about the perception of use among youths, we need figures on prevalence to judge how big a problem pouches are among years 11 to 13 in the UK. So far, that data suggests that pouches are a fringe practice that has been inflated by the media and various health groups.

Final thoughts

The figures from the DSMF survey are worth our attention, even if they are a little misleading. At a minimum, they suggest the growing popularity of pouches among youth, which is something that should be actively discouraged.

Sensible regulations that are actually enforced are a good start for pouches. While much is made of the “loophole” that allows pouches to be purchased by those under 18, anecdotally, at least, social media and peer-to-peer selling are the main channels this cohort uses to obtain pouches.

As such, fines for those who sell to underage users are just one part of the puzzle that pouchers need to solve to ensure adults retain access to the safest way to consume nicotine.