#nicotine-pouches

#nicotine-pouches

The Food and Drug Administration is holding a public meeting Thursday to consider whether Philip Morris International can advertise its pouches as a less-harmful alternative for adults who currently smoke cigarettes. Government documents posted before the meeting suggest FDA regulators are leaning toward approving the company's request. But the meeting will give an outside panel of health experts a chance to weigh in and ask questions of both the company and the agency.

Around 7.5% of 16 to 24-year-old-men are using the small sachets that fit under the top lip, compared with 1.9% use among young women and 1% among adults overall. Most pouch users - estimated to be around half a million people - also smoke or vape, and a growing number are using them to give up smoking, University College London researchers found.

Smoking is one of the clearest public-health failures of our time. More than 500,000 Americans still die each year from smoking-related illnesses, and globally the picture is even more alarming. In the United States, anti-smoking campaigns have reduced the number of new cigarette users, but the effectiveness of these measures may be fading. Indeed, the headline of a widely-shared news story notes "Celebrities Are Making Smoking Cigarettes Cool Again". Yikes.

After vapes staved off the extinction of tobacco, a new generation of nicotine products is promising a safer, albeit no less addictive, form of consumption through tobacco-free pouches made popular by the likes of Zyn and Velo. Now, a celebrity-backed upstart called Sesh is trying to challenge those incumbents. Buoyed by $40 million in venture funding from Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale's 8VC, along with music stars Diplo and Post Malone,