Is Snus (Pouch Tobacco) Safe?

With snus, you can enjoy the taste of tobacco and a nicotine jolt without inhaling smoke or vapor into your lungs. Should you warn your teen?

At some point, your teen will encounter pouch tobacco.

Among the smokeless tobacco options are tiny cloth packages, similar to tea bags, that contain moist tobacco powder. Originally from Sweden, they are called “snus,” to rhyme with “loose.”

These pouches are available, refrigerated, in the United States at smoke shops in major cities and some gas stations.

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How do you use snus?

You put the pouch under your upper lip. You don’t smoke it, vape it, or put it in your nose.

Snus is flavored and attractive to teens

In the United States you can get tobacco pouches designed for the American market in a smaller portion — at most 4 mg of nicotine — and with more flavoring to hide the tobacco taste. Mint and wintergreen are popular. You’ll also see fruit flavors like grape and alcohol flavors like rum.

It’s not hard to guess that the U.S. manufacturers have kids in mind, since they are the top consumers of flavored tobacco products for vaping. In 2021, about one of every 100 high school students said they had used nicotine pouches during the past 30 days (the numbers are lower among middle-schoolers), and sales of the pouches have grown rapidly.

Could snus help you quit smoking?

In 2019, the federal Food and Drug Administration agreed that the company Swedish Match USA, Inc., could sell eight kinds of snus products with the claim: “Using General Snus instead of cigarettes puts you at a lower risk of mouth cancer, heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis.”

The big public health question is whether snus will help reduce the number of people who smoke — a huge plus — or hook a new generation on nicotine. According to government statistics, if cigarette smoking continues at its current rate, one of every 13 Americans age 17 or younger alive today will die early from a smoking-related illness. Nearly 9 out of 10 adults who smoke cigarettes daily first try it as a teen.

Some observers worry that teenagers, perhaps encouraged by the less dire labeling, could start with snus and move on to cigarettes or vaping. Vaping has been the most popular tobacco product among American teens since 2014.

In Sweden, snus has been seen as a smoking prevention measure. Snus also could make it easier to maintain a smoking or vaping habit, since it offers a convenient substitute when you’re at the office or in school and need to avoid any odor.

Is snus “safe”?

It’s clear that putting nicotine into your system even without smoke still presents risks, possibly increasing your chances of a stroke, though the manufacturer of snus disputes that argument. Although levels of cancer-causing substances called carcinogens may be lower in snus, it still has them.

Snus may increase the risk of lip and oral cancer and pancreatic cancer, but these are relatively rare illnesses, and the evidence is mixed or shows a slight effect. Sweden has not seen a big surge in these cancers.

Smoking, on the other hand, sets you up for heart disease, lung cancer, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis. Because nicotine is so addictive, even after people start coughing they may struggle to stop.

Withdrawal symptoms — irritability, craving, depression, anxiety, poor attention, sleep problems, and a surge in appetite — typically last weeks, and, for some, go on for months.

Snus is also addictive.

Bottom line: What can you do to keep your teenager from using tobacco of any kind?

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