Abstract
The government appears poised to allow the sale of oral tobacco and nicotine products in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ). These products include chewing tobacco, snus, and nicotine pouches. In recent years, the tobacco industry has invested heavily in marketing flavoured tobacco-free oral nicotine products as youth lifestyle products, including NZ-specific promotion since early 2024. Deregulation of these products has uncertain benefits for New Zealanders, given lower-harm nicotine replacement therapy and vaping products are already widely available as alternatives for people who smoke, and the safety and efficacy of novel oral nicotine products is not yet clear. NZ currently has high levels of youth nicotine addiction, including among young people who have never smoked, and additional youth-targeted nicotine products are likely to exacerbate this problem.