‘Invisible threat’: Nicotine pouches taking over schools

A terrifying new trend is taking over schools, with fears parents will not be able to tell if their child is using the illegal product.

As the fight against vaping continues, a new nicotine product is becoming increasingly popular with young people and parents will not be able to tell if their child is using it because they are basically invisible.

Nicotine pouches — called Zyns, snus or little lip pillows — have become fashionable thanks to social media.

They look like tiny tea bags filled with nicotine, with flavours including mint, bubblegum and mango.

Placed discretely between your lip and gum, the nicotine is absorbed directly into the bloodstream.

Matilda, 18, and Jacob, 20, have both tried pouches.

“In high school, a lot of people were doing it and that’s where I initially tried them,” Matilda told A Current Affair.

Jacob said pouches could be pulled out discretely.

“People don’t really blink an eye at it, rather than seeing puffs of clouds coming out,” he said.

“A lot of my mates, especially at uni, they’re doing it a fair bit.”

They look like tiny tea bags filled with nicotine, with flavours including mint, bubblegum and mango.

University of Sydney associate professor of public health Becky Freeman, who has been studying vape use among teenagers, says she is worried about the pouches.

“The whole goal is that it’s discreet, smells good and gets you addicted to nicotine,” she said.

“Pouches keep getting mentioned by kids in the focus groups.

“They’re buying them from tobacconists, that they’re buying them online that they’re sort of the new trendy thing.”

She said they were not legal products in Australia.

Chewing tobacco was banned in Australia in 1991.

Jacob, 20, has tried nicotine pouches. Picture: A Current Affair

Matilda 18, first tried the pouches in high school. Picture: A Current Affair

Like vapes — which are now banned from being imported and illegal to sell — pouches fall in the same category.

But tobacconists who, along with still selling vapes, say nicotine pouch sales are booming.

“It’s mostly online, so anyone can sort of get it online, but we brought it into stores because a lot of people are asking,” one worker said.

In fact, two of the largest tobacco companies, Philip Morris and British American Tobacco, have created their own brands.

In 2022, the Therapeutic Goods Administration seized less than 110,000 units of nicotine pouches.

Last year, it was almost 3.5 million units.

So far this year, the federal health department said about 5.1 million units were under assessment for seizure, as well as 168,000 tins of pouches already seized.

Tobacconists who say nicotine pouch sales are booming.

University of Wollongong chemical toxicologist Jody Morgan will soon launch a study into the pouches to learn more about their toxicity.

She said a medium-strength nicotine pouch contained about 10mg of nicotine.

An average cigarette contains about 12mg of cigarette, but smokers only inhale some of it.

“You only absorb about 1.5 mg of that because most of it is actually burnt when you light the cigarette,” Dr Morgan said.

Since the market is unregulated in Australia, pouches with 20 times the strength of a cigarette have been found.

“Long-term use of these can cause some gum problems, particularly ulceration of the gum, you can get some open sores that don’t heal,” Dr Morgan said.

“It can cause quite a burning sensation.”

Philip Morris, which makes Zyns, is facing a lawsuit in the US over claims the product is addictive and harmful to young people.

The Federal Health Department said the government was “both aware and concerned about the rising profile of nicotine pouches being advertised and supplied in Australia”.

“The targeting of children is particularly concerning given the risks of nicotine to population health,” a spokesperson said.