Study: Nicotine Pouch Use in UK Smoking Quit Bids Nearly Triples

• A new study by UCL looks at nicotine pouch use during quit smoking attempts.
• The study found that use of nicotine pouches has nearly tripled during quit attempts since 2021.
• It’s not clear from the study whether nicotine pouches contributed to a higher quit rate.
• Nicotine pouches are regularly used alongside other nicotine products during quit attempts.
• Nicotine pouches are not licensed as quit smoking aids in the UK.

The number of adults using nicotine pouches while trying to quit smoking has nearly tripled in Great Britain over the last five years, according to new research from University College London (UCL).

The study was published online as a preprint in October 2026. A team at UCL, led by Professor Sarah Jackson, looked at data from nearly 8,000 adults who made a serious attempt to stop smoking between June 2021 and July 2026. Read the study.

A preprint is a study that has been shared publicly before other scientists have checked it (a process called peer review) and before it appears in a journal. So these findings haven't had that independent check yet. However, the team behind the study has published a lot of research on smoking and nicotine.

The researchers found that use of nicotine pouches during quit attempts rose from 2.4% in 2021 to 6.7% in 2026. The biggest rises were among 18–24-year-olds and men.

The study also looked at whether using nicotine pouches while trying to quit was linked to actually stopping smoking. Once other factors were taken into account, the overall picture was unclear. But the researchers did find a link to higher success among adults who didn't also use e-cigarettes.

The findings give us a better idea of how people in Great Britain are using nicotine pouches. They also show that more research is needed on whether the pouches could play a part in helping people stop smoking.

The researchers looked at data from 7,995 adults who made a serious attempt to stop smoking between June 2021 and July 2026. It came from the Smoking Toolkit Study, an ongoing survey of smoking and nicotine use in Great Britain.

Use of nicotine pouches during quit attempts rose a lot over this time:

• June 2021: 2.4% of adults trying to quit said they used nicotine pouches.
• July 2026: 6.7% of adults said they used them to try to quit smoking.
• Overall: use increased almost threefold (about 2.8 times).

The rise was biggest among 18–24-year-olds. Among this age group, pouch use during quit attempts went from 2.2% to 18.9%. Among men, it went from 1.8% to 11.0%.

This suggests that nicotine pouches are becoming a more common part of quit attempts in the UK.

This fits with what we reported earlier this year on a report from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). It found that nicotine pouch use in Great Britain is mostly among people who smoke or used to smoke, and there was no clear sign that use is rising among people who have never smoked.

As well as tracking how use has grown, the researchers checked whether Britons who used pouches while trying to quit were more likely to say they had stopped smoking.

Across the whole study period, 33.5% of nicotine pouch users said they were still not smoking, compared with 27.0% of people who didn't use pouches.

But other things can affect whether someone quits, such as their age, how dependent they are on smoking, whether they use other quitting aids, and the details of their quit attempt. The researchers took these into account. Once they had, the overall link between nicotine pouch use and quitting was unclear.

So the study did not show that nicotine pouches, on their own, made people more likely to quit smoking. But a closer look at the results turned up something interesting.

One of the most striking findings came when the researchers looked at people who did not use e-cigarettes (vapes) during their quit attempt.

In this group, 38.4% of nicotine pouch users said they were still not smoking, compared with 24.0% of those who did not use nicotine pouches.

After taking other factors into account, nicotine pouch users who did not use e-cigarettes had roughly 1.9 times the odds of saying they had quit, which is a statistical way of comparing chances. The researchers did not find such a clear link among people who also vaped.

This raises the possibility that nicotine pouches may play a different role for adults who aren't already using e-cigarettes when they try to stop smoking. But it doesn't mean nicotine pouches have been proven to help people quit.

The study was observational, which means it can't show whether using nicotine pouches caused the differences in quit success. Other differences between the participants may also have played a part.

The study also shows how people use nicotine pouches in everyday life. Among adults who used nicotine pouches during a quit attempt between 2024 and 2026:

• 49.6% also used e-cigarettes
• 37.9% also used nicotine replacement products bought without a prescription, such as nicotine gum or patches

This suggests that people often use nicotine pouches alongside other products rather than on their own. However, the researchers did not measure how often people used each product, how long they used them for, or whether they switched between products during their quit attempt.

That makes it hard to tell what part the pouches played compared with other nicotine products or quitting aids.

The study gives some of the most detailed evidence so far on nicotine pouch use during quit attempts in Great Britain. The main finding is clear: use has risen sharply since 2021, especially among 18–24-year-olds and men.

The research also found a link between nicotine pouch use and quit success among people who did not use e-cigarettes. But overall, it is still unclear whether nicotine pouches help people quit.

The study has some important limits. People reported for themselves whether they had quit. They were surveyed at different points after their quit attempts. And relatively few of the people in the study used nicotine pouches. Randomised controlled trials, which are the best way to test whether something works, will be needed to find out whether nicotine pouches help people stop smoking.

The UK is drawing up new rules for nicotine products, so it's important to understand how adults really use nicotine pouches.

Nicotine pouches are not licensed in the UK as medicines to help people stop smoking, and the evidence that they work for quitting is still limited compared with established quitting aids. Even so, this research suggests that some adults are already choosing to use them when they try to stop smoking.

The most important thing about this study is that it looks at what people actually do, rather than relying on assumptions about how nicotine pouches are used.

The findings show why it matters to understand the different ways adults use nicotine products, including whether they use them alongside other products and how their smoking changes over time.

As nicotine pouch use keeps growing, more research is needed to find out whether these products help people quit smoking, who they help, and in what situations. The new UCL study is an important step towards answering those questions.