The war on snus

Nicotine pouches, or snus as it is known to our Nordic neighbours, remain without a clear regulatory footing in Cyprus. 

Classified by the drugs council in October 2024 as pharmaceutical products, they require marketing authorisation to be sold legally, yet no such licence has been issued.

At the same time, the products are not regulated under smoking control legislation, nor subject to specific rules on strength, taxation or age restrictions. 

This has inevitably created uncertainty over how nicotine pouches should be treated and who is responsible for overseeing their circulation.

On the one hand, the pharmaceutical services have issued stark warnings, from tachycardia to nicotine poisoning. 

On the other, kiosk owners insist they are trapped in a legal no man’s land, blamed for selling products that arrived on the market without any clear framework governing their circulation. 

Between these fronts sits the consumer, often a smoker or former smoker, trying to navigate a public health debate conducted largely by obtuse press releases.

Nicotine pouches, sometimes informally referred to as “snus”, are small sachets placed under the lip that have been historically employed as a substitute to smoking in Sweden and large swathes of Scandinavia. 

Apart from Sweden, traditional tobacco-based snus is banned across most of the EU, but in over 15 EU member states, non-tobacco nicotine pouches are legal. They are regulated and taxed as a commercially available product.

Their arrival in Cyprus in 2024 sparked a public panic as Chinese products with high nicotine content appeared at kiosks, untaxed and largely unexamined. 

The health ministry responded by temporarily classifying them as pharmaceutical products, effectively banning them from general sale unless licensed as medicines. 

No such licences have been issued, thus resulting in nicotine pouches now being deemed illegal as an “addictive substance”, sold nowhere officially save a few establishments of dubious repute.

“We are told there is no law, then told there is a law, then told the product is a medicine that no pharmacy can sell,” says Andreas Theodoulou, a representative of the kiosk operators’ union.

“Meanwhile, people still want it, and we continue to lose out on a market that is clearly there.” 

The drugs council bluntly determined that nicotine pouches fall under the definition of pharmaceuticals. 

Without marketing authorisation, their circulation has been deemed illegal in all forms. 

The justification is public health, particularly in regard to nicotine addiction that carries well documented risks.

While no credible individual can deny that nicotine is addictive, the question is how the council can realistically blockade pouches on this basis yet apparently allow cigarettes, smokeless tobacco (Iqos), vapes and even alcoholic beverages despite their own undisputedly addictive characteristics.

The science itself determines that it is a cigarette’s combustion, and the inhalation of its smoke containing thousands of toxic compounds, that proves so deadly. 

Non-burning products, including snus and nicotine pouches, remove combustion from the equation. 

Multiple studies from Sweden and elsewhere associate their use with substantially lower risks of lung cancer, cardiovascular disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease compared to continued smoking. 

Sweden now has the lowest smoking rate in the EU and correspondingly low lung cancer rates among men.

That does not make nicotine pouches benign. High doses can cause acute symptoms, particularly in inexperienced users. Oral irritation, gum damage and dependence are an admitted risk.

However, as renowned pulmonologist Dr Andreas Zacharides says “From a harm reduction perspective it is not about perfection. It is about relative risk. To pretend otherwise is both unrealistic and intellectually dishonest.”

Cyprus, meanwhile, has one of the highest smoking rates in Europe and a lung cancer burden that reflects it. 

According to health ministry data, lung cancer remains among the leading causes of cancer mortality on the island.

Smoking laws exist, taxation is heavy, warnings abound, and yet smoking remains a pervasive facet of the national culture.

When assessing the value of such a product, namely snus, one must assess if it could plausibly reduce harm for adult smokers who cannot or will not quit nicotine altogether.

“I tried patches, gums, pills, you name it,” said a former smoker who asked not to be named. 

“The gums are sold at such a low dosage they’re useless for someone like me who needs a stronger hit. The pouches were the first thing that stopped me lighting up. Now I’m being told they’re dangerous, as if cigarettes aren’t sold on every corner. It feels absurd.”

In Cyprus, alternative nicotine products such as nicotine gum are available only in strengths of up to 2mg, which is significantly lower than the maximum strengths commonly available in many other EU countries.

As any undergrad economist can inform, where there is demand, supply will follow, licensed or otherwise. 

Illegal sales mean no age checks, no quality control, and ultimately no tax revenue. 

Diko MP Chrysis Pantelidis, pushing for legislation, has made that point explicitly. 

His proposed framework would bring nicotine pouches under smoking control laws, regulate their composition, ban sales to minors and impose excise duty.

“Right now we have the worst of all worlds,” he said. “No protection for public health, no protection for minors, and no revenue for the state.”

Excises from tobacco and its alternatives remains a significant contributor to the public purse. 

“If nicotine pouches are going to circulate, pretending they are medicines no one will ever license simply hands the market to smugglers and unregulated imports,” Pantelidis insists.

“Other countries have already addressed this issue through regulation rather than prohibition.”

A similar point is raised by retailers, who argue that banning the products outright has not eliminated their availability.

“Declaring nicotine pouches illegal does not mean they disappear,” Theodoulou reiterated.

“They are still being sold informally, without age checks, quality controls or taxation, while cigarettes remain legally available at licensed outlets.”