Nicotine pouches have strong markets in Scandinavia, the US, parts of Europe and even Pakistan. However, as tobacco companies look to diversify their offering and move to lower-risk products, pouch use is steadily gaining traction in other regions.
A new paper, called Adolescent use of nicotine pouches in four Latin American countries: A cross-sectional survey (Alexandrou, 2026), examines nicotine pouch use, harm perceptions and access among adolescents in Argentina, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru.
The paper
The research takes a snapshot of adolescent nicotine pouch use in Central and South American markets. Researchers surveyed 12,785 adolescents aged 12–17 in 55 schools across 16 cities between March and August 2025. The questions aimed to uncover:
Whether students had ever used pouches.
How often they used them.
What brands or flavours they preferred.
Where or how they got pouches.
How they perceived the harm of pouches compared to vapes and cigarettes.
The data
Here is a summary of some of the more interesting findings:
Ever use and current use
The paper shows that, across the combined sample, around 6% of Latin American adolescents surveyed have used pouches before. Peru is the highest at 9.1%, with Argentina the lowest at 3.2%. Mexico and Guatemala come in at 5.9% and 5.5%, respectively.
Of course, while ever-use figures are interesting, they don’t really tell us a lot about ongoing use. Per the data, past-30-day use across the four countries is 2.4%. Once again, Peru is the highest at 4.5%, with Argentina coming in lowest at 1.2%.
What stands out for me here is that these figures are quite high when compared to other regions, such as the UK. The authors explicitly caution that this is a snapshot of selected schools, and not nationally representative evidence, but the disparities in age groups are interesting, as seen below.
ASH survey in Great Britain among 11- to 18-year-olds put past-30-day use at 1.2%.
US National Youth Tobacco Survey reported 30-day use among middle and high school students at 1.7% in 2025, with high school only at 2.6%.
While the age groups don’t exactly map onto each other, it does suggest that pouches are emerging as a credible product in Latin America. While no youth use would be better, there is an argument to be made for pouches' ability to divert adolescents from starting to smoke.
Smoking rates in these countries vary, but here is a rough rundown of the most current data:
Argentina: 22.8%
Mexico: 15.4%
Peru: 12.2%
Guatemala: 11.2%
However, adolescent smoking in these countries paints a far starker picture. While I couldn’t find comparable data for 11- to 17-year-olds, the paper itself quotes smoking prevalence among 13- to 15-year-olds in these places as:
Argentina: 20.2%
Mexico: 19.8%
Guatemala: 17.1%
Peru: 7.2%.
Even the most ardent tobacco control champion should surely agree that there is some utility in nicotine pouches' potential to cut combustible cigarettes off at the pass. Youths are prone to experiment, and there is not much we can do to change human nature, so it would be better if they experimented in far safer ways.
Does current use translate to daily use?
The 2.4% of 30-day use looks high when compared to US and UK cohorts of the same age. But the paper digs in a little and explores what that looks like on a daily basis.
Here is the data on how many days in the 30 days that pouches were used:
1–3 days: 38.7%
4–9 days: 20.7%
10–19 days: 12.8%
20–30 days: 27.8%
In other words, daily use is at most 1 in 4 among 30-day users. So, about 0.7% of Latin American adolescents surveyed use pouches every day, which is more in line with UK and US figures.
How do adolescents get pouches?
Each of the four countries cited is at different stages of pouch regulation.
Argentina has banned under-18 sales under a new 2026 framework, called Resolution 549/2026.
Guatemala has no current under-18 sales.
Mexico proposed an under-18 sales ban in March 2026, but it has not come into effect.
Peru has banned under-18 sales under Law No. 32159.
However, despite the lack of regulation on under-18 sales, very few adolescents are buying through legal channels, such as newsagents. The paper reveals how those surveyed said they acquired pouches, with the most common sources being:
Being given pouches by someone: 26.3%.
Giving someone else money to buy them: 15.8%.
Taking them without permission: 12.4%.
Buying from a street vendor: 10.5%.
Buying from a corner shop: 10.2%.
With only 1 in 5 sourcing pouches from commercial entities (corner shops & street vendors), one wonders how effective any under-18 ban will be in reducing these figures.
Perception of harm
Finally, the paper looks at the perception of harm. They asked the adolescents how dangerous they thought pouches were compared to vapes and cigarettes. The results are fairly depressing.
- 38.7% thought pouches were more harmful than cigarettes, while 36.7% thought pouches were more harmful than vapes.
Some thought cigarettes (13.1%) and vapes (13.5%) were equally harmful as pouches.
Only 5.4% and 6.6% correctly stated that cigarettes and vapes, respectively, were more harmful than pouches.
The rest answered that they did not know.
While it’s rather pronounced, this isn’t a problem that is exclusive to Latin America. Adolescents around the world have been bamboozled by messaging that hypes up the dangers of vapes and pouches to the point that they think these products could be as dangerous as cigarettes.
Final thoughts
While these data can’t be seen as a representative nationwide survey, it does show that school-aged youths are engaging with pouches. What impact this use has on adult smoking prevalence in the future is anyone’s guess. However, with such dismal awareness of relative risks compared to cigarettes, it’s not clear whether the population will be given the information they need to make healthier choices.
