Joseph Hart 11 December 2023

 

Usually, when you see a major newspaper that has a feature on a harm-reduction product like nicotine pouches or vaping, you need to brace yourself for a rehashing of lazy, cheap, and long-debunked talking points. 

While The Times feature, We both tried ‘snus’. Is it the new vaping?, isn’t perfect, it has some of the curiosity, even-handedness, and research you’d like to see in a newspaper article. 

I didn’t get the sense that the journalists involved came with a set of assumptions they had to prove. So, overall, it felt pretty refreshing. Although, there were a few parts that I felt could have been a lot better.

Addiction vs dependence

One part of the piece that was a bit objectionable was the constant references to nicotine addicts. The authors refer to themselves as addicts throughout the article. Perhaps most egregiously, in the first paragraph, there is a reference to “the coffee fusspots who obsess about their paraphernalia like needle-fixated junkies.”

Now, far be it from me to try and shame someone about their word choices, but there is pretty extensive literature about how this kind of language stigmatises people with addictions. But that’s not my biggest issue here.

The thing is that vaping or nicotine pouches are not an addiction. It’s a dependence. For something to be an addiction, it needs to be a dependence that causes harm. 

The above is not mere semantics; it’s fundamental to understanding the value of these products and the concept of harm reduction. It’s also not some selective definition—proper thinkers like Charles A. Gardner are beating the drum about this on Twitter/X all the time.

Twitter post that reads - Anti-nicotine warriors use circular logic. To them, nicotine is harmful because it's "addictive." But addiction requires dependence + harm and there is no harm from nicotine itself... other than dependence, which isn't a harm (e.g. coffee is dependence-forming but not harmful).

The Swedish Experience

There is also a section about snus in Sweden that is a bit misleading. It suggests that initial snus marketing was sports-focused, and, as a result, “a large proportion of young men switched to tobacco pouches while it remains rare for women.” 
The reality is a bit more complicated. Sweden has been using snus for a long time. A fair proportion of that time included attitudes we would bristle at today. In the words of Snusline’s excellent article International Women’s Day and Snus:

Despite its usefulness, snus use among women was generally frowned upon and considered to be unladylike. This was largely due to societal attitudes towards women and tobacco use. This fact were heavily influenced by Victorian-era ideas of gender roles and propriety. Women who used snus were often viewed as unfeminine or even immoral, and many were ostracized by their communities.

As the article points out, after the 1960s, companies like Swedish Match did start to market to women. However, the product was bulky and produced a brown residue from the tobacco, which caused many women to stay away. 

The tragedy here is seen in contrasting lung cancer rates in Sweden. However, vapes and the introduction of nicotine pouches have gradually changed this situation: As snus and nicotine pouches have become cleaner and more discrete, women have adopted these products. With time, this will help close the disparate cancer rate among men and women in Sweden.

Other points of note

The article consults with a few experts, one of which is Alice Wiseman, policy leader for addiction at the Association of Directors of Public Health, who claims that nicotine pouches are “extremely harmful”. 

Now, it’s possible that Wiseman and I have totally different definitions of the terms “extremely” and “harmful”, but in the words of the NHS, “Although nicotine is a very addictive substance it’s relatively harmless.” 

UCL research fellow Harry Tattan-Birch also gets some space in the article. He’s fairly cautious about recommending pouches, but he makes some good points, such as the absurdity of the Netherlands banning pouches while keeping more harmful cigarettes on the market.

Personal Experiences and Perception

The article could have better addressed the influence of personal experiences on perceptions about harm-reduction products such as nicotine pouches and vaping. Although the authors candidly share their own experiences with ‘snus’ (and by that they mean nicotine pouches), they only include one sentence about the ‘enthusiastic’ seller they deal with – who happens to have dropped a 40-a-day habit.

The widely limited acceptance of harm-reduction products is largely due to a lack of firsthand usage stories. These could provide a more accurate representation of the transition from smoking to these alternatives. Collecting individual user experiences could broaden the discussion, moving it from theoretical advantages and disadvantages to practical, relatable situations. The challenge with nicotine pouches is their discreet nature!

Final thoughts

It’s a sad state of affairs when you are taken aback by an article that is not a floundering and desperately biassed attack on harm-reduction products. Getting balanced information out to the public so they can make their own choices is vital. Despite a few flaws, this is a decent start by The Times.

Link to The Time feature – https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fbf1c79e-a456-423a-ba7a-036e584dde71