We came to Manitoba expecting to find illegal nicotine pouches sitting on shelves and tucked under counters. Why wouldn’t we, that is what we saw in Ontario. Instead, we kept hearing the same two words: SOLD OUT!
And that may tell us more about Canada’s nicotine-pouch policy than finding another bag full of illegal products ever could.
Our stops in Manitoba are part of the Unlock the Pouch Summer Road Trip, where we’re crossing the country trying to understand what the nicotine-pouch market actually looks like on the ground. We know what the antis are telling us, that the policy is working, but what we see in the real world it doesn’t match. So instead of relying on out of touch government funded organizations we are hitting the streets.
The demand is something that I didn’t think about. What would demand that is outpacing supply look like?
In Winnipeg, we walked into our first store and asked for nicotine pouches. Blank looks. Finally, someone corrected us. “You mean ZYNs?” “Yes.” “Sorry. Sold out. Try coming back later.”
Okay. One store. No big deal. Then it happened again and again.
We quickly learned two things: people weren’t calling them nicotine pouches, they were calling them ZYNs, and stores couldn’t seem to keep them in stock.
Between Winnipeg and Brandon, we stopped at nine different retailers, including vape shops, convenience stores and gas stations. We weren’t randomly wandering around hoping to stumble onto something. We were following leads, talking to people and trying to understand how this market operates. Six of those nine locations told us essentially the same thing: We’re out.
That was when the story changed for me. Because a sold-out illicit product doesn’t tell you there isn’t a market. It tells you there is one and this market likes their lip pillows!
Canada has an authorized nicotine pouch. But government policy has restricted where adults can buy it. Which I know i have said this many times, but that is so still so strange for me. An An adult smoker can walk into a convenience store or gas station and buy cigarettes. But if that same adult wants an authorized smoke-free nicotine pouch, we’ve decided the appropriate place to send them is a pharmacy. Who wants to talk to a pharmacist before buying a sleeve of nicotine pouches?
What happens if you live in a rural or remote community where pharmacy access is limited, how about if your pharmacy doesn’t carry them? To be clear a pharmacy is not regulated to carry this smoking cessation product. So it’s really up to the pharmacist.
So when the former Minister of health threw down this absurd ministerial order, did he think that demand for an innovated smoking cessation product would disappear? Like let’s be honest, demand doesn’t magically disappear because government makes the legal product harder to get. Demand just found somewhere else.
In downtown Winnipeg, we followed a lead to a store where we’d been told we might find the goods.
We parked near the United Way building, and while we were there, I started to see the ever icon pouch tin everywhere. I mean at this point of the story, I can spot them a mile away.
We were there looking for illegal nicotine pouches for purchase, we didn’t expect to witness them in the wild. We saw addiction and compassion working at the same time. We also saw addiction at it worse. but through that I couldn’t help but notice a pouch tins. Brands and products that you cannot simply walk into a Manitoba pharmacy and legally purchase. Even in the throws of addiction to drugs there was a sense of tobacco harm reduction visible with the pouches.
At that moment, this stopped feeling theoretical. It started to make sense. Yes, they were sold out, because we were seeing the evidence of demand with our own eyes.
In Ontario, we found the product. In Manitoba, we found the clients.
You won’t be getting a massive haul video from us today. We didn’t leave Manitoba with physical product. What we found was arguably more revealing: an established illicit market where retailers were waiting for new shipments because existing supply couldn’t keep up with demand.
Manitoba already knows that illicit nicotine isn’t necessarily some harmless underground economy. Serious criminal activity has been reported in connection with the trade.
So maybe it’s time we stop pretending this is simply about where a legal nicotine product should sit on a shelf. Government created a barrier to the regulated market while demand continue so someone stepped in to serve it. That’s what happens.
We can shout this from Winnipeg all the way to the Minister of Health’s office in Ottawa:
Restricting a legal product doesn’t eliminate the people who want it.
It doesn’t eliminate nicotine use or demand, it just changes who gets to supply it and in Manitoba, somebody has figured out how to keep that door wide open and their biggest problem is keeping enough product on the shelves for everyone.
In business, that is a success story, demand out pacing supply. In the policy world that is called a failure.
This follows the report yesterday of the enormous haul of tobacco. vapes and probably pouches that the RCMP confiscated at the border. So the Australian experience is starting in Canada!
Great.
It will be the same across the country. Black market thrives because the government decided to make access more difficult for Canadian smokers looking for a safer way to consume nicotine.