Denmark’s strict new limit on the maximum strength of nicotine pouches will take effect in July.
The executive order will make it illegal to sell nicotine pouches, a product placed between the lip and the gum, above the low strength of 9mg.
The Danish government has said the legislation will be “fully implemented” by April 2026.
Denmark has already banned flavoured vapes except for tobacco and menthol and made “neutral and standardised” packaging compulsory.
Announcing the new limit in October, Minister of the Interior and Health Sophie Løhde said: “Within a few years, nicotine pouches have become popular among children and young people, who can get hold of pouches with high concentrations of nicotine, which can make them addicted.
“They are particularly sensitive to nicotine and are more exposed because their brains are not fully developed. We therefore also have a special responsibility to protect children and young people from the harmful effects of nicotine products.”
Smokers ‘deprived of safer alternative’
However, vape advocates and anti-smoking campaigners have warned that setting such a strict limit on nicotine pouch strength will deprive smokers of a far less harmful alternative.
In a letter to the Danish government last week, nicotine harm reduction campaigner Clive Bates said the limit is likely to trigger “predictable unintended consequences.”
He said: “The limit will not affect youth uptake, as most youth would use less nicotine than 9mg to begin with. It will, however, harm adults who smoke and require more nicotine in more potent formats to successfully switch.”
Clive added that it is “premature” to set such a strict limit and “would be better initially to set a higher limit (15-20mg) that does not trigger harmful unintended behavioural responses” and to “establish product quality standards that protect users from contaminants and rogue ingredients.”
He said that restricting nicotine strength in pouches will simply increase the risk of unsafe products being supplied illegally or potential users choosing to smoke instead.
Global health group Smoke Free Sweden also opposes the new law as nicotine pouches are a far safer alternative to smoking. Harm reduction expert Dr. Delon Human said: “Oral nicotine pouches are proven to be a far safer alternative to cigarettes and are helping millions of smokers to quit all over the world.
“Alongside pharmaceutical grade nicotine replacement therapy, oral nicotine pouches are the safest form of nicotine use, with a significant evidence base to prove that.”
Up to 90 per cent of current pouches outlawed
He said the new limit will outlaw 90 per cent of the pouches currently used in Denmark, leaving smokers to choose between the pouches that remain or cigarettes that contain 85 per cent more nicotine.
He added: “It’s not hard to predict which option they’ll end up choosing. Smokers considering quitting will be denied a viable safer alternative, while most of the 153,000 existing pouch users will be driven back to cigarettes, or to find acceptable alternatives on the unregulated, illicit market.
“Making the most dangerous way of consuming nicotine the most attractive is simply illogical and a massive reversal in the ongoing war against the deadly toll of smoking.”
