Nicotine consumption is undergoing one of the most significant transformations in its history. Over the past two decades, a wide range of Innovative Nicotine Products (INPs) — from vapes and heated tobacco products (HTPs) to nicotine pouches and other smoke-free alternatives — has emerged alongside traditional tobacco products, fundamentally changing the way nicotine is consumed across the world.
Nevertheless, despite their rapidly growing use, INPs still face enormous controversy and ambiguous legislation in many countries.
In an article published last April 7, I addressed the European Commission’s latest Evaluation Report on its Tobacco Products and Tobacco Advertising Directives, which states that “new public health concerns have arisen” due to the growing popularity of INPs. More recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a document framing nicotine pouches as a danger that must be defeated.
While INPs are not 100% risk-free, supranational organizations like the EU and the WHO have largely failed to assess their benefits when compared to traditional cigarettes and, particularly, public opinion.
For instance, despite a 2022 public consultation involving 24,000 Europeans revealing that 77% of consumers agree that INPs help with smoking cessation, these findings have been repeatedly disregarded. Another fact that receives far too little attention is that Sweden managed to achieve smoke-free status — defined as a smoking rate below 5% — through a combination of traditional policies and INP-positive measures, with the majority of Swedish former smokers having switched to these alternatives.
Former smokers themselves have had much to say regarding the effects of INPs. However, We Are Innovation went one step further by surveying the friends, partners, and family members closest to them in order to understand what quitting really looks like from the outside and what role innovative nicotine products played in that process. The study was conducted by Ipsos across the United States, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and Japan, and its results offer further evidence that switching to INPs can improve the lives of smokers.
According to the relatives and friends of former smokers, switching to INPs has a positive impact on the former smoker’s personal appearance, smell, personal presence, self-confidence, sociability, and emotional well-being. Loved ones also report improvements that directly affect themselves. Reduced exposure to secondhand smoke ranks as the most noticeable change, but improved shared experiences — from social activities and exercise to simply going out to restaurants — are not far behind.
The numbers matter as well. Some of the measurable key takeaways from the WAI/Ipsos survey include:
● Support for adult smokers’ rights to access INPs ranges from 70% in Canada to 86% in the United Kingdom;
● Efficacy perceptions range from 84% for vapes to 89% for heated tobacco products, with nicotine pouches perceived as helpful by 87% of respondents;
● Between 69% and 84% of respondents agreed that switching to INPs was an effective way for their friend or relative to quit smoking cigarettes, while 66% to 78% believed it would not have been possible for their friend or relative to quit without them.
Ultimately, the debate surrounding INPs cannot continue to ignore the experiences and demands of the very people most affected by tobacco policies. And those people are not just smokers or former smokers, but also their families and friends.
While caution and regulation remain necessary, public opinion increasingly points toward a clear expectation: adult consumers want access to less harmful alternatives that can help them move away from combustible cigarettes.
Policymakers should therefore move away from prohibitionist and catastrophist narratives and adopt a more balanced, evidence-based approach that recognizes INPs as tools that can be included in legitimate public health strategies. Ignoring the voices of millions of smokers, former smokers, and their loved ones risks disconnecting regulation from social reality at a time when nicotine consumption is already changing irreversibly.
