A Never-Ending Story?
At the end of September 2026, NION entered the UK market. Its product is a thin, dissolvable strip placed under the lip, much like a nicotine pouch. The difference is that, with strips, there is nothing to remove from the mouth and no used pouch to throw away. Thanks to its smaller format, the product also comes in a compact case, making it easier to carry. Each nicotine strength (1, 3 and 6 mg) is matched to a pouch strength level, from the lowest to the highest, and most of the testimonials featured on the brand’s official website compare the product directly with nicotine pouches.
NION also promotes its product as innovative, even though nicotine strips are nothing new. Other brands have already marketed similar products, including Melta, Lost Mary and Swedish manufacturer Nicoccino.
Several promotional operations are planned for the launch. For example, customers who return an empty nicotine pouch can receive a free pack of NION. A prize draw is also being organized, with gourmet dinners up for grabs, while the brand is distributing samples in bars, clubs, workplaces and on the street.
The product nevertheless raises a broader question: nicotine pouches are often presented as an alternative to tobacco, or to vaping. Now, strips are being marketed as an alternative to nicotine pouches. But does an alternative itself need an alternative? The answer is more complicated than it may seem.
A Question of Balance
From the perspective of some governments, the proliferation of nicotine-containing products can be seen as a risk. In France, for example, Decree No. 2025-898 of September 5, 2025, which led to the ban on nicotine pouches, targets all oral nicotine products, “including in the form of portion pouches or porous pouches, paste, beads, liquids, chewing gum, lozenges, strips or any combination of these forms.” The intention behind the decree is clear: beyond banning nicotine pouches, it is also intended to prevent the sale of their alternatives. And that logic is understandable. After all, when a regulator wants to remove a product from the market, it is not so that an equivalent product can replace it the next day.
Nicotine strips also raise another question: how far will this go?
If nicotine pouches are presented as an alternative to other products, and strips are alternatives to pouches, could we not expect another new product to one day enter the market as an alternative to strips? That new product could later have an alternative of its own, and so on. Public authorities have taken this possibility into account, and the French decree should prevent this potential proliferation of products.
But this logic has one weakness: it makes no distinction between different types of use. It treats a smoker who swaps cigarettes for nicotine pouches in the same way as a pouch user who is handed a strip in a bar. It makes the proliferation of products the problem, when the real issue is what each product is replacing. Answering the question “how far will this go?” with a blanket ban amounts to giving up on making that distinction.
The problem, then, is not the number of formats, but rather who they are intended for. Giving smokers a wide range of options to replace smoking with a less harmful alternative is always a good thing. Nor is there anything inherently problematic about a strip replacing a pouch. The real challenge lies in finding the right balance: slowing the race to introduce ever more formats without ending up, as in France, banning products that could also help steer smokers away from cigarettes.
