Walk through almost any British city centre on a Saturday afternoon and there is a decent chance someone will try to put a free can of nicotine pouches in your hand. No payment, no questions beyond a quick age check, just a tin of mint or fruit pouches and a smile. On 23 June 2026 a global tobacco industry watchdog called STOP said that small, friendly gesture is one of the most effective recruitment tools the nicotine business has ever built.
The headline number from the report is hard to ignore. Around 34 billion nicotine pouches were sold worldwide in 2025. That is a 660 per cent jump from 2020. The market is on track to be worth roughly 16 billion dollars by 2027 and 25 billion by 2028. STOP argues that growth did not happen by accident, and that a lot of it was paid for by people who were never old enough to buy a pouch in the first place.
So what did the watchdog really find, how much of it applies to the UK, and should any of it change how you think about the pouches in your own pocket? Let us walk through it properly.
Who is STOP, and why should you listen to them?
STOP stands for Stopping Tobacco Organizations and Products. It is a tobacco industry watchdog funded as part of a wider public health effort, and its whole job is to track how cigarette and nicotine companies market their products. It is not a neutral referee. It exists to push back on the industry, and it says so openly. That matters when you read its conclusions, because the framing is deliberately critical.
That said, the figures it published are drawn from industry sales data and the companies own filings, not guesswork. When STOP says that Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco each controlled about a third of the global pouch market in 2025, that is roughly the same picture you get from financial analysts. The disagreement is rarely about the numbers. It is about what the numbers mean.
Jorge Alday, who directs STOP, summed up the report in one blunt line. "Imagine a company thinking it is okay to give a free sample of an addictive product," he said. His point is simple. Free sampling is normal for chocolate bars and energy drinks. For a product that delivers nicotine, he argues, it is a different proposition entirely.
Did Velo's marketing really reach 10 million teenagers?
This is the figure that has done the most damage to the industry this week. According to the report, social media marketing for BAT's Velo nicotine pouches reached more than 10 million people under the age of 18 between 2018 and 2023. Velo is one of the three brands you will see most often on a UK shelf, alongside Nordic Spirit and Zyn.
The mechanism the report describes is familiar to anyone who has scrolled through Instagram or TikTok. Brands worked with influencers whose audiences ranged from 24,000 followers to 12 million. BAT, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco all used them. The posts rarely looked like adverts. They looked like a friend showing you something they liked, which is exactly the point. STOP says the campaigns tied pouches to friendship, an active lifestyle, romance and the general sense that successful people use them.
Whether a 16 year old who saw a Velo post in 2021 went on to buy one is impossible to prove case by case. But the watchdog's argument is about scale. If your marketing lands in front of 10 million minors, some of them will become customers, and a brand that did not want that outcome would have built its targeting differently. "The marketing strategy works," Alday said. "It is about making more and more money."
What does all this look like on a British high street?
Here is where the report stops being abstract. In the UK, Velo, Nordic Spirit and Zyn have all handed out free pouches through their online stores, at events, and through representatives working city centres in person. Nordic Spirit extended one of its free sample offers to 30 June 2026, so the practice is live as you read this.
The official line from every brand is that samples go only to verified adults. Sign up online, confirm you are over 18, and a full can arrives with free shipping. On a busy street the verification is a glance and a question. Critics, including Trading Standards officers who have spoken to the trade press, have long argued that a face to face age check on a crowded pavement is far weaker than the systems used for alcohol or tobacco. The watchdog would say that is the gap the industry is counting on.
It is worth being fair to the other side here. Plenty of adults who use pouches as a way off cigarettes value the chance to try a flavour or strength before committing money to it. Free sampling is not automatically sinister. The problem the report keeps circling back to is who else is standing in that queue.
Is any of this even legal in the UK right now?
Mostly, yes, and that is the uncomfortable part. As of summer 2026 a healthy adult can legally buy nicotine pouches in the UK, and brands can legally advertise them and give them away to over 18s. There is no minimum age set in law yet, which is why a child in some parts of the country can still walk into a shop and buy a tin.
That is changing, but in stages. The Tobacco and Vapes Act brings in an under 18 sales ban that takes effect on 29 October 2026. A much wider advertising and free distribution clampdown follows on 1 June 2027. Until those dates arrive, the free can on the high street sits in a legal grey zone that the watchdog describes as a vacuum the industry has rushed to fill before the rules catch up.
The campaign group We Vape recently warned that even the rules already on the books are barely being enforced for pouches. Trading Standards teams have been active against illegal vapes but have done almost nothing in the pouch category. So even where a line exists, there is a real question about who is policing it.
Why does the watchdog keep mentioning your brain?
Because nicotine and a developing brain are a bad match, and the science on that is not really in dispute. The human brain keeps maturing until around the age of 25. Nicotine acts on the same systems that govern attention, impulse control and reward, and exposure during those years is linked to a higher risk of long term dependence.
The usage trend backs up the concern. In the United States, youth use of nicotine pouches nearly quadrupled between 2022 and 2025. The UK picture is smaller but moving the same way. Action on Smoking and Health found that about 4 per cent of young people were using pouches by March 2025, up from under 1 per cent in 2022. Researchers at UCL went further and concluded that the recent growth in UK pouch sales has been driven almost entirely by people aged 16 to 24.
None of this means an adult pouch user is harming their brain in the same way. It means the watchdog is worried about the specific group the marketing seems to reach best.
What is the Formula 1 connection?
One of the louder sections of the report deals with motorsport. STOP praised attorneys general from 19 US states and jurisdictions who challenged Formula One and the sport's governing body over letting Zyn and Velo market pouches to young fans. Tobacco money and racing have a long shared history, and the watchdog frames pouch sponsorship as the latest chapter of an old playbook. Sport reaches huge young audiences, the logos travel worldwide on television, and the association with speed and success does exactly what the social media campaigns do.
For UK readers the F1 point lands close to home, because the same brands sponsor festivals and events here. Nordic Spirit, for instance, is the official pouch partner of a major British festival this summer. The vehicle changes from a race car to a music stage, but the watchdog's complaint is the same.
Should this change how you think about your own pouches?
If you are an adult who switched from cigarettes to pouches, the report is not really aimed at you, and it does not claim your pouches are as dangerous as smoking. Most health bodies, including ASH, accept that nicotine pouches are very likely to be less harmful than cigarettes. ASH chief executives have said as much, while adding the crucial caveat that pouches must be properly regulated.
That is the honest tension at the heart of this. The same product that can help a 40 year old stay off tobacco can also hook a 17 year old who never smoked. The watchdog is not asking adults to throw their tins away. It is asking governments to limit the marketing, the flavours, the strengths and the free giveaways that pull in people who were never the intended market.
On the question of nicotine pouch side effects for adult users, the everyday list is fairly modest. Gum irritation, a sore mouth, hiccups, nausea if the strength is too high, and the plain fact of nicotine dependence itself. Those are worth knowing, but they are a different conversation from the youth recruitment problem the STOP report is built around.
What happens next?
Two clocks are ticking. The first is the UK legal calendar, with the under 18 ban in October 2026 and the advertising rules in June 2027. The second is the commercial one, with the market still forecast to keep climbing toward 25 billion dollars by 2028 regardless of what regulators do.
The watchdog's wish list is specific. It wants age restrictions with real teeth, advertising bans, plain packaging, flavour limits, caps on nicotine strength and higher taxes. Some of that is already on the way in Britain. Some of it, particularly flavour and strength limits, is still being argued over. What this week's report has done is put hard numbers behind a worry that has been building for two years, and it has done it at the exact moment the free cans are still being handed out on the street.
The next time someone offers you a free pouch in a city centre, you do not have to refuse it. But it is worth remembering that the gesture is not really about you. It is about the 660 per cent, and about who else is reaching for the tin.
Frequently asked questions
What is the STOP nicotine pouch report?
It is a June 2026 analysis from STOP, a global tobacco industry watchdog, warning that nicotine pouch sales have surged to about 34 billion units a year and that marketing, including free samples and social media campaigns, is reaching large numbers of teenagers.
Are free nicotine pouches in the UK legal?
For now, yes. Brands can legally give free pouches to verified adults over 18. There is no minimum age set in law yet, although an under 18 sales ban takes effect on 29 October 2026 and wider advertising and free distribution rules follow on 1 June 2027.
Did Velo really market to 10 million teenagers?
The report says social media marketing for BAT's Velo pouches reached more than 10 million people under 18 between 2018 and 2023. It measures reach, meaning how many young people saw the content, rather than how many bought a product.
Are nicotine pouches more dangerous than cigarettes?
No. Most health bodies, including ASH, accept that nicotine pouches are very likely to be less harmful than smoking. The watchdog's concern is not adult harm reduction but the recruitment of young people who never smoked.
What are the side effects of nicotine pouches?
Common effects include gum and mouth irritation, hiccups, nausea if the strength is too high, and nicotine dependence. Starting with a lower strength usually reduces the unpleasant ones.
How many young people in the UK use nicotine pouches?
About 4 per cent of young people were using them by March 2025, up from under 1 per cent in 2022. UCL research found recent sales growth has been driven almost entirely by 16 to 24 year olds.
Which brands hand out free samples in the UK?
Velo, Nordic Spirit and Zyn have all offered free pouches through online stores, events and city centre representatives. Nordic Spirit extended one free sample offer to 30 June 2026.
Will the UK ban nicotine pouches?
There is no plan for a full ban. The Tobacco and Vapes Act tightens the rules through an under 18 sales ban in October 2026 and an advertising clampdown in June 2027, but adults will still be able to buy pouches.
