Is the nicotine industry about to eat itself?

In my previous post (Another own goal by the vaping lobby?) I addressed what I considered to be an extraordinary statement by an online vape retailer.

According to the head of external affairs at Haypp:

“Vaping on public transport can be disruptive for other passengers and, in some cases, harmful for those with respiratory issues or illnesses. It can also increase the risk of fires in enclosed spaces.”

Responding to my post, Peter Beckett, who runs the Clearing The Air campaign (and used to work for Juul), commented:

Haypp majors as a nicotine pouch vendor. This is clearly designed to make the argument nicotine pouches over vapes. It’s classic digital PR and it's designed to drive traffic to their nicotine pouches. And it's worked: they got a follow link in the article.

He has a point. However, the company’s website reads - ‘Haypp UK: Buy Nicotine Pouches and Vapes Online’ - so it seems a bit perverse to promote pouches by generating a negative narrative around vapes. After all, those comments could apply not just to vaping on public transport but in any enclosed public space, including pubs, bars, or even in the home.

What is really interesting, though, is the fact that Haypp, which sells a range of reduced risk nicotine products (including pouches, vapes, and heated tobacco) has chosen to undermine one nicotine product at the expense of another.

I get that pouches are a useful alternative in places where vaping, like smoking, is banned or considered by some to be antisocial, but why highlight contentious arguments about vapes, and vaping, that will only benefit opponents of vaping?

Perhaps they think the future lies in pouches rather than vapes so it doesn’t matter if vaping is thrown under the bus (no pun intended). They may be right, but the idea that pouches will get an easier ride from governments and the public health lobby is optimistic at best. Have they not read some of the more recent headlines:

Extra-strong nicotine pouches packaged like children's sweets (BBC News)
High on snus in school: The hidden nicotine pouches shredding teens' gums (BBC News)
Nicotine pouches sold to children mimic sweets, says UK trading standards body (Guardian)
Addictive nicotine pouches can legally be sold to children in shops (Independent)

And that’s just in the last six weeks. Meanwhile, in Ireland today:

Music festivals partnering with pouches that ‘addict a new generation to nicotine’ (Irish Medical Times)
Irish Cancer Society pleads for stricter regulations on nicotine pouches (MSN)

The idea that governments and the ‘public health’ lobby won’t come after nicotine pouches is laughable. It’s happening already and, yes, it starts with ‘protecting’ children, but after that?

Haypp’s statement about vapes, and vaping, is endemic of a curious trend whereby the tobacco and vape industries (both manufacturers and retailers) are so desperate to promote the latest thing - in this case nicotine pouches - they seem happy to undermine another nicotine product, presumably because they believe it will generate greater profits in future.

Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco have been distancing themselves from combustible tobacco for years, despite the fact that millions of their customers worldwide smoke (despite the risks) and many don’t want to quit.

(Interestingly, according to Investors Chronicle, income from combustible tobacco may be in decline but ‘Combustibles are projected to remain a major income driver, contributing 46 per cent of overall industry revenues by 2035 compared with 66 per cent in 2024, and 50 per cent of operating profit by 2035 compared with 70 per cent last year’.)

In 2017 PMI, the world’s largest tobacco company, pledged $1 billion to fund a new initiative, the Foundation for a Smoke Free World, over twelve years. Although the company subsequently stepped back from the Foundation, which was renamed Global Action to End Smoking in May 2024, PMI has consistently reaffirmed its commitment to a smoke free future.

Meanwhile, British American Tobacco, the world’s second largest tobacco company, promotes the idea of ‘A Better Tomorrow’ and is equally committed to a world without combustible tobacco.

Look, we get it. Cigarettes are potentially far more harmful than vapes and nicotine pouches (or snus). But, in my view, if you sell any product, including cigarettes, you have a duty to actively defend the use of that product, and the interests of consumers who buy that product legally and don’t want to quit.

Again, in my view, only Imperial and JTI get the balance right. Both companies are rightly keen to promote reduced risk products but neither, to the best of my knowledge, has publicly undermined the product that continues to pay their employees’ salaries and their investors’ dividends. Choice and personal responsibility is their underlying message, and that includes combustible tobacco.

If vaping rates have stalled in the UK (the latest ONS figures are due to be published on October 1) it’s possible that nicotine pouches may be one of the reasons, but it’s a brave move to promote nicotine pouches by undermining vapes when pouches currently represent a tiny percentage of the nicotine market in the UK. (According to ASH, it’s a growing market but only 1.1% of adults currently use them, compared to the 12% of adults who vape.)

However the bigger picture is interesting too because, if an online retailer like Haypp is actively promoting pouches as an alternative to vapes, what does it say about the long-term future of e-cigarettes? Popular, easy to use disposable vapes have been banned and the pressure has switched to renewable vapes that mimic disposables in both look and price (and are therefore equally disposable).

My point though is a simple one. How long can the nicotine industry survive if it continues to eat itself like this? I know it’s a competitive industry and that’s good because competition drives innovation. But undermining other reduced risk nicotine products (including those you sell!) seems a bit odd to me.

By all means highlight the advantages of using pouches where vaping is banned, but there’s no need to give unsolicited ammunition to the anti-vape brigade who are indistinguishable from the anti-nicotine brigade whose long-term goal is the eradication of every single recreational nicotine product.

If people don’t understand that they’re in the wrong business.