Category: Nicotine

Online Shop Northerner Shifts to Tobacco-Free Future

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Northerner, an online seller of smokeless tobacco and nicotine products for 25 years, said starting this month, it will exclusively sell tobacco-free nicotine pouches and other modern oral nicotine products.
The announcement marks a new chapter in the company’s commitment to public health and the tobacco harm reduction movement, the Missouri City, Texas-based company said.
“Having been in the smokeless tobacco business for 25 years, the decision to move away from tobacco has not been easy,” said Sarah Krysalka, senior director of commercial partnerships and external affairs at Northerner. “But the trends are clear.
“More Americans are choosing tobacco leaf-free options, and we aim to stay at the forefront of this movement by offering the best assortment of modern oral nicotine products to meet the evolving needs of adult consumers.”
With the rise of non-combustible nicotine options like pouches, the company said it recognizes the need to adapt to the shifting market landscape and provide consumers with tobacco leaf-free and other modern oral nicotine product alternatives to combustible cigarettes, according to a press release.
“By leaving the tobacco market, Northerner will shift its focus to fulfilling the growing demand for nicotine pouches and other modern oral nicotine products,” said Krysalka. “Our goal is to cater to the changing needs of adult nicotine users while educating tobacco consumers about tobacco leaf-free nicotine alternatives.”
Northerner.com is a website operated by Northerner Scandinavia Inc, a U.S. subsidiary of Northerner Scandinavia AB and Haypp Group.
December 15, 2024
Playing with Numbers

Photo: Hafiez Razali
How research methods distort nicotine effects and risks
By Cheryl K. Olson
“The paper seems like a joke.” That’s what Harvard researcher Miguel Hernan said recently to the journal Science about a report linking e-cigarettes and strokes.
The article was concocted by a dubious research group, founded to help young international medical school graduates get coveted authorship credits. Its analysis of U.S. government survey data claimed that respondents who vaped had a higher risk of stroke, at younger ages, than those who smoked. Its glaring flaws included inflating the number of survey takers by tens of thousands and failing to correct for the relative youth of vapers.
Despite this, the 2022 paper’s findings found their way into media headlines and anti-vaping advertising. The Science article credits Gal Cohen and Floe Foxon with sounding the alarm on this appalling study.
Subtler issues that affect research quality, and how research is perceived by the public, are harder to spot. Research methods may seem a dull or arcane topic. But a peek at how the research sausage is made reveals some simple yet surprising ways that the process can go wrong.
Sometimes old habits or unquestioned assumptions are to blame. Just as typewriters affect how we text on our mobiles, legacy cigarette research methods and mindsets influence how we study noncombustible nicotine products.
Hours of Vaping?
Everyone understands cigarettes. When it comes to totting up use, cigarettes are easy. They come in standard units. You light, puff and extinguish. Not so for products such as vapes. How, then, do researchers compare smoking with these new nicotine-delivery systems?
“There’s a lot of research showing that people who use e-cigarettes graze throughout the day,” says Arielle Selya, who conducts nicotine product research at Pinney Associates. “Unlike cigarettes, there’s no defined stopping and starting. They don’t have to finish a discrete unit; they just puff on and off.” Measuring this kind of variable, intermittent activity is a challenge.
This problem is not unique to vaping. Studying nicotine pouch use, I found unexpectedly wide variations in what people did and what they thought was normal. Some tossed a pouch in the trash after 10 minutes or 15 minutes. Others kept one in their mouth for a couple of hours. A few sometimes reused a pouch they’d started earlier or cheeked pouches of two different flavors at once.
As an example of what can go wrong, Selya pointed to a recent study of vaping and respiratory symptoms. To the authors’ credit, they tried to measure heaviness of e-cigarette use. The problem was the poor fit between their question and the behavior. They asked, “How many hours did you use electronic cigarettes per day?”
“I’m not a vaper, but that seems like such a strange question,” says Selya. “Like asking how many hours do you spend drinking water?”
Better approaches to measuring nicotine product use include writing down what you’re doing whenever a device pings you (ecological momentary assessment) or in a daily diary.
Twisted Terminology
Another holdover from cigarettes is the way tobacco is seen as the default flavor for all nicotine-containing products. “With e-cigarettes, you have to add a tobacco flavor,” notes Selya. “But researchers often say ‘flavored’ when they mean ‘non-tobacco flavored’–in some communications even the NYTS team does this–but tobacco itself is a flavor! This generates misunderstandings.”
Nicotine research terminology can defy common sense. Consider the concept of “abuse liability.” In everyday English, abuse implies harm. When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration assesses new drugs, stricter regulation may be required if there’s abuse potential, defined as “intentional, nontherapeutic use” to “achieve a desired psychological or physical effect.” An effect like euphoria, hallucinations or distorted thoughts or perceptions.
When it comes to reduced-harm nicotine products, abuse potential becomes, weirdly, a plus. A backhanded compliment. If you want to attract someone away from cigarettes, features like rapid nicotine absorption, relaxation and relief of withdrawal encourage that transition.
Abuse liability also illustrates another nicotine methodology vexation: there is no agreed-on way to measure it. One article looked at comments made by the FDA on manufacturers’ submissions for multiple types of nicotine products. Regulators considered a whole range of measures related to abuse liability, from product chemistry and pharmacokinetics to subjective factors. Of the latter, “liking” the product turned out to be the most reliable and sensitive abuse liability measure!
Misleading Measures
Again, cigarettes are simple and familiar. Novel nicotine products, by contrast, come in ever-evolving variations. U.S. government surveys, such as the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) and National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), measure trends in who is using what products. The results are widely used and reported. However, for survey results to make sense, people must understand the questions.
Discrepancies in results suggest that research participants often misunderstand nicotine products and/or the terms being used to describe them. For example, answers about vaping brands and device types often don’t match. In the NYTS, just two-thirds of teens who said they “usually” used a pod/cartridge brand of e-cigarette (such as Juul, Logic or Vuse) also said they “most often” used a pod/cartridge device. Almost one in five adults in the PATH study had these kinds of mismatched answers about their vaping behavior.
Some questions have even larger errors. “The NYTS asks whether your e-cigarette product contains nicotine salts,” says Selya. “And overall, about 50 percent said they don’t know.”
This is also true for so-called “concept” flavors, she notes. “Not strawberry-banana, but something like cosmic fusion. When youth are asked about concept or ice flavors, they don’t know the characteristics of their product, or maybe don’t understand those words.”
NYTS first asked youth about tobacco-free nicotine pouches in 2021. That year, just 1.9 percent of teens reported ever using one. Checking the details, I found a flaw: The questionnaire defined nicotine pouches as “flavored.” However, over a third of teen ever-users said the pouch product they used was unflavored. (Perhaps they confused pouches and snus?)
A further example: the 2023 NYTS found that 1 percent of youth—an estimated 370,000—had ever used a heated-tobacco product. At the time, that product category was not sold in the United States.
As Ray Niaura of New York University told me, “That can’t be right. Literally, it’s impossible. So that means it’s measurement error.”
This suggests young survey takers were befuddled. “Kids aren’t going to know,” says Niaura. “‘Heated tobacco: Yeah. I smoked a cigarette. It’s heated. I light it on fire.’”
Yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the result without comment or explanation.
If a product is only used by a small percentage of people, these sorts of errors could create unreal changes in year-to-year trends. The reporting of those potentially misleading trends affect the perceptions of academics, regulators and the public. “With that amount of uncertainty and some of the low numbers, it’s hard to figure out what’s the signal versus the noise,” notes Selya.
Questionable Choices
Another seemingly simple but complicated issue: Who counts as a current product user? Youth surveys typically ask “have you used e-cigarettes at all, even a puff, in the last 30 days?” Surveys aimed at adults commonly ask, “Do you currently use e-cigarettes some days, every day or not at all?”
If you assume capturing any youth e-cigarette use is important, then “even a puff” makes sense. But it also makes it difficult to separate teens who are briefly experimenting from teens at risk for problematic ongoing use.
In studies that look at how using nicotine products affect some aspect of health, researchers choose what outcomes to measure. Their choices can suggest biases or suspicious holes in what’s reported.
A recent study using PATH data tried to compare e-cigarette use and the age at which people developed asthma. “Why age of asthma onset rather than whether they developed asthma at all?” says Selya. “Often, I read a study and think, did you look at these other related outcomes? If so, why weren’t they published?” This issue of results that may exist but aren’t reported are known as the “file drawer problem.” Preregistering study plans would avoid this issue.
Researchers, Meet Users
Before I dove deeply into tobacco harm reduction, my research focused on the effects of violent video games on youth. Finding discrepancies between research reports and what teens told me, I realized that many of the field’s most-cited “experts” had never actually played or even observed the games they studied.
Similarly, many nicotine researchers seem to have never held or used the noncombusted products they study. This leads to findings that don’t reflect real-world situations. One example is an article by Sebastien Soulet and Roberto Sussman on metal contents of e-cigarette aerosols. They found that researchers were overheating tank vaping devices, generating aerosols that would be “likely repellent to human users.”
“I think there’s a big disconnect and abysmally low involvement of actual consumers, the people affected by policies,” says Selya. Partnering with people who actually know and use novel nicotine products would be a giant step toward improved research quality.

References
Foxon F. (2023). Discordant device/brand reporting among adolescents who used e-cigarettes in the National Youth Tobacco Survey. Nicotine and Tobacco Research. https://doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntad228
Joelving F. (2024). Prescription for controversy. Science. https://www.science.org/content/article/questionable-firms-tempt-young-doctors-with-easy-publications
Selya A, Ruggieri M, Polosa R. (2024). Measures of youth e-cigarette use: strengths, weaknesses and recommendations. Frontiers in Public Health. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1412406
Soulet S, Sussman RA. (2022). A critical review of recent literature on metal contents in e-cigarette aerosol. Toxics. https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6304/10/9/510
Vansickel A et al. (2022). Human abuse liability assessment of tobacco and nicotine products: approaches for meeting current regulatory recommendations. Nicotine and Tobacco Research. https://doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntab183
Cheryl K. Olson is a California-based public health researcher who specializes in behavioral health issues and consults on tobacco product behaviors via McKinney Regulatory Science Advisors. She spent 15 years on the faculty of Harvard Medical School.

August 1, 2024
Investor Plans Liquid Nicotine Facility in Zimbabwe

Photo: Tobacco Reporter archive
A Chinese investor plans to build a multi-billion dollar nicotine-extraction factory in Zimbabwe, reports The Herald. The plans are at an advanced stage, according to the country’s former ambassador to China, Christopher Mutsvangwa.
The facility will extract nicotine from tobacco stalks, leaves and flowers for the cigarette alternatives, such as e-cigarettes. Once established the factory is expected to also process tobacco from neighboring countries including Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia.
“There is going to be a very big industry to extract nicotine from the by-products after selecting the premium tobacco leaves,” Mutsvangwa told participants in meeting of the ruling Zanu PF’s party’s Mashonaland West provincial coordinating committee meeting in Chinhoyi.
“The Chinese firms have an interest in setting up the factories here in Zimbabwe because of our production levels,” he said.
The investor’s board of directors reportedly met on May 31, 2024, to finalize the modalities of setting up the factory, which will likely be built in Karoi, in one of Zimbabwe’s largest tobacco producing districts.
Zimbabwe is also expected to be a major producer of cannabis seeds following plans to establish a US$400 million factory. “We now have capacity to produce cannabis seed in the country. After an initial investment of $30 million, the company now wants to set up a seed production factory,” said Mutsvangwa.
The investments in nicotine extraction and cannabis production will boost Zimbabwe’s attempts to extract more value from its tobacco industry, as detailed in the government’s Tobacco Value Chain Transformation Plan.
June 4, 2024
Study: Nicotine Alternatives May Be More Addictive

Photo: Alexey Stiop
Nicotine alternatives, such as 6-methyl nicotine, may be more potent and addictive than nicotine itself, reports Reuters, citing U.S. Food and Drug Administration scientists and independent researchers.
Traditional nicotine found in many vapes and pouches is extracted from tobacco leaves; 6-methyl nicotine, in contrast, is made in a laboratory.
While chemically similar to nicotine, the synthetic substances are not subject to U.S. tobacco and vaping regulations, allowing manufacturers to sell vapes with nicotine analogues without seeking FDA authorization.
Tobacco and vape companies have criticized that the FDA product authorization process is costly and time-consuming. Only a handful of applications have been approved.
In response to questions from Reuters, the FDA said it was reviewing the available data on nicotine alternatives to inform potential actions.
Three academic researchers told the news agency that current studies of 6-methyl nicotine are too limited to draw definite conclusions on the health impact or to what degree it is addictive.
The limitations of existing research, the researchers said, included that some papers were industry funded while others focused on the short-term impact on animals or cells and were insufficient to understand 6-methyl nicotine’s effects on human bodies.
The FDA has yet to approve any flavored vape using traditional nicotine for sale in the United States, saying companies have not been able to show that the health benefits they offer to smokers outweigh the known risks to young people, who may be more attracted by the flavors.
The Spree Bar vaporizer, which uses a 6-methyl nicotine solution branded as “Metatine,” notes on its website that Metatine “may have a toxicity profile similar to nicotine.”
Sven Jordt, a professor at Duke University who has authored papers on products like Spree Bar, said 6-methyl nicotine could me more addictive and toxic than its traditional cousin.
“Do we want to have such a chemical as a recreational product, available to anyone?” he asked. “That’s really questionable.”
May 29, 2024
Korea Seeks to Regulate Synthetic Nicotine as Tobacco

Photo: Purilum
The government of South Korea aims to regulate synthetic nicotine as tobacco, reports the Yonhap News Agency.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Economy and Finance want to revise the Tobacco Business Act to include synthetic nicotine in the definition of tobacco.
Tobacco in South Korea is governed by the National Health Promotion Act, under the jurisdiction of the health ministry, and the Tobacco Business Act governed by the finance ministry.
The current rules define tobacco as a product “manufactured in a state suitable for smoking, sucking, inhaling steam, chewing or smelling, by using tobacco leaves as all or any part of the raw materials.”
That language fails to capture e-cigarette liquids made with synthetic nicotine, which is created in a laboratory rather than from tobacco leaves. As a result, vapes are not subject to product requirements, such as health warning labels, age restrictions and tobacco taxes, in South Korea.
The push for new legislation follows an announcement by British American Tobacco that it is mulling the launch of a new synthetic nicotine product in the country. South Korea is reportedly the only nation where the tobacco giant is considering a synthetic nicotine product.
“We have decided to push for the revision of the Tobacco Business Act when the 22nd National Assembly opens,” an official at the health ministry was quoted as saying. “We will provide necessary materials to the finance ministry and there is already an abundance of evidence proving that synthetic nicotine is tobacco.”
The consumption of e-cigarettes has been rising steadily in South Korea, reaching 16.9 percent of tobacco sales in 2023.
May 16, 2024
Study Claims Freebase Nicotine Safer than Salts

A new University of Louisville study shows the nicotine in certain types of electronic cigarettes can increase the risk for an irregular heartbeat, according to a press release.
Tests in mice showed that nicotine salts used in pod-based e-cigarettes led to heart arrhythmias and could trigger a fight-or-flight response in higher doses.
“This suggests the nicotine is harmful to the heart and counters popular claims that the nicotine itself is harmless,” Alex Carll, an assistant professor in UofL’s Department of Physiology who led the study, said in a news release Thursday. “Our findings provide new evidence that nicotine type and concentration modify the adverse cardiovascular effects of e-cigarette aerosols, which may have important regulatory implications.”
Researchers state that regulating nicotine salts could help mitigate the health risks of vaping.
The research also suggests choosing e-cigarettes with freebase nicotine instead of nicotine salts, or using e-cigarettes with a lower nicotine content could reduce the risk of harm.
January 6, 2024
UK Health Authorities Warn of High Nicotine Vapes

Credit: TS Donahue
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), a UK health authority, has warned the public against the use of a number of e-cigarette products due to illegal levels of nicotine found in Ireland.
Irish retailers have been ordered to remove the two products from sale and to issue a recall to customers, reports the Irish Times.
The two products are both disposable MK Bar 7000s from the brand McKesse, with separate flavors, Blue & Razz Ice and Green Apple, subject to the warning.
The products contain more than the permitted amount of nicotine of two percent or 20mg/ml.
The HSE’s environmental health service, the national tobacco control office, has submitted an alert to the European Safety Gate, the EU rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products.
This is the second alert submitted by the environmental health service to the EU in recent weeks.
“I therefore must remind manufacturers and importers of electronic cigarettes and refill containers (e-liquids), it is their responsibility to ensure that they fully comply with all legislative requirements,” said Maurice Mulcahy, regional chief environmental health officer in the HSE.
Anyone who has purchased these products has been advised to avoid their use return them to the shop from which they were bought.
Retailers have been instructed to issue a recall notice on their premises and online, both on retail websites and social media. Shops have also been asked to supply the HSE with supplier traceability details of the relevant products.
July 16, 2023
Monday Deadline for Utah Nicotine Increase Comments

Credit: Adobe
The proposed settlement between the Utah Department of Health and the Utah Vapor Business Association, which represents vaping manufacturers and wholesalers, would allow Utah retailers to sell vape pens with a higher nicotine concentration than is currently legal.
Current regulations were designed to safeguard the health of Utah’s youth and reduce the risk of nicotine addiction, KPCW reports.
Two years ago, Utah set a limit of 3 percent nicotine by weight per container. If the proposed settlement goes through, that could increase to 5 percent by weight.
Newspaper reports state the U.S. Food and Drug Administration limits the amount of nicotine to 5 percent by weight. The FDA has not set a maximum nicotine level, according to the FDA.
But opponents want to prevent the increase. Gayle Ruzika, who serves as president of the Eagle Forum, a conservative lobbying organization, as well as Drug Safe Utah, says this is a non-partisan issue.
If the state doesn’t settle, Ruzika says the issue would go back to court, which she believes would be worth it.
The Department of Health and Human Services is accepting public comment on the proposed settlement. The deadline to submit comments is Monday, July 17, the day of the public hearing. Concerned individuals can email the Utah Department of Health and Human Services at comments@utah.gov.
The virtual public hearing agenda has been posted on the Utah Public Notice Website. The hearing starts at 10 a.m. July 17.
July 16, 2023
Broughton Grows into Extractables and Leachables

Photo courtesy of Broughton
Broughton has launched a new extractables and leachables (E&L) testing service for the reduced-risk nicotine industry. The new service will offer tailored E&L studies for products aimed at the premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) and the marketing authorization application (MAA) pathways.
According to Broughton, regulatory bodies increasingly focus on the interactions between manufacturing components, nicotine delivery devices and container-closure systems, and the final product formulation. Producers must identify and assess any toxicological risks that could arise via such interactions via E&L studies.
Aimed at supporting reduced-risk nicotine product categories such as electronic nicotine delivery systems, Modern Oral nicotine pouches and nicotine replacement therapy, the service is available across all stages of the product development lifecycle.
The new testing service includes study design, extractables studies, extractables toxicology assessments, leachables method development and validation, leachables shelf-life studies and leachable toxicology evaluation.
“Extractable and leachable studies are essential to the PMTA and MAA regulatory pathways for reduced-risk nicotine products to ensure their safety and demonstrate evidence of mitigating risk. Even in emerging categories, where regulations may not exist, such as nicotine pouches, they should be adopted as a best practice approach to product understanding and stewardship,” said Chris Allen, CEO of Broughton.
“Our scientific experts and toxicologists have years of combined experience conducting E&L studies across a range of reduced-risk nicotine product and device categories. By offering a one-stop solution for E&L studies, we can ensure a fully integrated approach across study design, extractables study delivery, leachables method development and toxicology assessment with our specialized consultants available to troubleshoot, problem-solve and develop analytical solutions to issues that may arise.”
July 11, 2023
Derek Yach: The Promise of Synthetic Nicotine

As consumer demand for healthier and more environmentally friendly alternatives to combustible cigarettes increases, we should expect greater focus on the benefits of this man-made alternative.
By Derek Yach
Tobacco-derived nicotine has been the sole source of nicotine used by pharmaceutical and tobacco companies until recently. The naming of the sector (tobacco sector), the naming of companies (British American Tobacco for example) and the framing of public health policies as tobacco control all show how pervasive and deeply embedded the word tobacco has become despite its scientific name being Nicotiana.
The dominance of tobacco plants started to wane when pharmaceutical companies developed nicotine-replacement therapies (NRTs) as cessation products. That highlighted the fact that while nicotine is addictive, it is not the source of death and disease caused by the products of combustion. The advent of a wide range of consumer-facing products that also use nicotine (especially e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches) to help smokers switch and/or quit has further increased the focus on nicotine.
Initially, there was no debate about the source of nicotine since it was assumed to come from the plant. In recent years, several companies have started using patented laboratory processes to develop nicotine from scratch. Many, like Zanoprima, use green chemistry to convert plant-based molecules into synthetic nicotine. Other companies, such as Contraf-Nicotex-Tobacco (CNT), begin with plant-based molecules used in cosmetics and derived from vitamin B.
Nicotine, like many molecules, exists in two orientations: S-nicotine and R-nicotine; however, nicotine that occurs naturally in the tobacco plant is entirely S-nicotine. Prior to the popularization of synthetic nicotine, this distinction had not been of great practical importance due to its naturally occurring form. Pharmaceutical-grade synthetic nicotine manufacturers such as CNT and Njoy therefore treat R-nicotine as a byproduct of the S-nicotine manufacturing process while Zanoprima’s patented process does not produce R-nicotine at all. Other manufacturers may use methods that may well not meet the high-quality standards of the pharmaceutical industry.
What Benefits Does It Bring to Consumers and the Environment?
Consumers increasingly demand information about the supply chain of end products. Leading food companies have led in being transparent about the source of all ingredients in their products with a shift toward those where labor conditions on the farm are known, addition of chemicals are reported, water and greenhouse gas use associated with products are made public and the traceability of food product ingredients is independently audited. Investors are more likely to invest in companies with sound records on these issues.
So it will be for all future nicotine products.
For many combustible users, the incentive to switch to a reduced-risk product usually starts with a desire to lower health risks. But for a considerable number, environmental issues are fast becoming reasons to switch, often independent of their health concerns. Again, this has its analogy in the food sector, where companies like Whole Foods have built their main value proposition on an environmental benefit, with health credentials being dubious.
The tobacco industry emits 84 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) a year, which is equivalent to 0.2 percent of global CO2 emissions, according to researchers at Imperial College London. Of the total, 20.87 million tons of CO2 come from cultivation, and 44.65 million tons of CO2 come from curing, together amounting to 78 percent of all tobacco industry emissions. Synthetic nicotine has the potential to virtually eliminate these.
Synthetic nicotine brings tangible benefits to consumers: A better sensorial experience, assurances about the absence of contaminants and a stamp of quality good enough for pharmaceutical companies, to name a few.
The recent World Health Organization report Tobacco: Poisoning Our Planet paints a vivid picture of the harms of tobacco farming, curing and processing for the environment. More recently, the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World provided a qualitative summary of the potential sources of environmental harm associated with reduced-risk products. Both the WHO and the foundation advocate for the reduction in global tobacco farming, outlining the harms caused by tobacco growth and cultivation on arable land, workers’ rights and malnutrition. It is likely that products created with synthetic nicotine can mitigate many concerns in the product lifecycle. And as companies selling clean nicotine push harder to ensure their products are recyclable and/or reusable, the overall negative environmental footprint will decline further.
Where Is It Likely to Grow Fastest?
Today, synthetic nicotine is used in next-generation nicotine products by emerging nicotine pouch companies like NIIN and by mainstream vape companies like Njoy. This trend is set to continue and will gain traction as e-cigarettes and nicotine pouch companies seek medical licensing using synthetic nicotine.
One example is SMOOD, an up-and-coming next-generation e-cigarette and NRT company based in New York City. SMOOD creates its products as a comprehensive approach to address both health and environmental issues simultaneously. Synthetic nicotine, recyclable hardware and design features to support smokers to quit may well be a signal of what is to come. “We always used nontobacco nicotine due to the absence of minor tobacco alkaloids and metals, both of which are inherent in agricultural production,” says Martin Steinbauer, chief engineer of SMOOD. “Together with repeatable pharmaceutical production processes, nontobacco nicotine improves the toxicological safety of our devices and eliminates carbon emissions, water use and deforestation from tobacco growing. Most importantly, it offers a clean break of nicotine from tobacco finally.”
Snus and heated-tobacco products are unlikely to shift away from tobacco in the medium term but are lowering the health risks of the tobacco they use through processing changes in the case of snus and by eliminating combustion in the case of heated-tobacco products. For decades to come, tobacco plants will be used in these products as well as in combustibles like cigarettes and cigars where a significant demand from consumers is likely to remain even as overall demand declines.
Most major tobacco companies already support farmers to diversify. It will be interesting to watch the dynamic within companies with large and growing reduced-risk portfolios who will continue to sell combustibles even as they shift to reduced-risk products to a greater extent in later numbers for several decades. Altria’s purchase of Njoy, Philip Morris International’s acquisition of Swedish Match and BAT’s dominance in the U.S. vape space all signal that these companies will take a twin track approach to nicotine sourcing.
Who Makes It and How Do They See the Future?
CNT has stated that synthetic nicotine is currently a niche product with enormous potential. “We see enormous demand there and the capacity for the synthesis of chemical is unlimited.”
Zanoprima, the only company to use myosmine as the starting material believe that in time synthetic nicotine will become the main source of nicotine in pharmaceutical products as well as in products likely to be sold as both medically approved cessation products, and as recreational products for ex-smokers to use.
Isn’t It Expensive To Use?
No—prices have been dropping recently and will continue to do so as demand increases.
Conclusion
Health and environmental consumer demand combined with benefits in terms of quality and safety, suggest that synthetic nicotine is set to meet its potential in the coming years.
A global health expert and anti-smoking advocate for more than 30 years, Derek Yach is the owner of Global Health Strategies. Previously, Yach was the director of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World and a World Health Organization cabinet director and executive director for noncommunicable diseases and mental health. He was deeply involved with the development of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

May 25, 2023