Imperial Tobacco Canada: Ban on ZONNIC Nicotine Pouches in Convenience Stores Leads to Cigarette Sales Rebound, Calls for Restoring Multi-Channel Supply

Key Points:

• Opposite policy effect: After ZONNIC was banned from convenience stores, legal product sales plummeted, while cigarette consumption increased.
• Black market surge: Illegal nicotine pouches quickly flooded the market, with nicotine levels far above legal limits, easily accessible to both youth and adults.
• Setback for quitters: In rural and remote areas lacking pharmacy access, adult smokers faced greater obstacles.
• Pharmacist burden: Significant increase in administrative workload, diverting resources from patient care.
• Economic blow: Affecting about 200,000 convenience retail jobs nationwide, threatening small businesses that rely on legal nicotine product sales.

According to Newswire on August 19, Imperial Tobacco Canada announced that one year ago, the Canadian government prohibited the sale of ZONNIC — the only nicotine pouch approved by Health Canada as a smoking cessation product — in convenience stores, allowing sales only behind pharmacy counters. The policy was intended to control nicotine product use and protect public health. However, new data show the measure has had the exact opposite effect.

Illegal sales surge: Many unregulated nicotine pouches with nicotine contents far above legal limits are now flooding both the physical market and e-commerce platforms, easily accessible to both youths and adults.

Smokers face barriers to quitting: In rural and remote areas where pharmacies are scarce, adult smokers who relied on ZONNIC to quit are now facing unnecessary obstacles.

Pharmacists under pressure: Pharmacists play an indispensable role in smoking cessation, but instead of focusing their time on essential patient care, they are now burdened with additional and unnecessary administrative work.

Over the past year, ZONNIC sales plummeted while cigarette sales increased by 2.8%. At the same time, the illicit market rapidly expanded, with more than 500 million unregulated nicotine pouches entering the market, many containing nicotine far above legal limits, and sold through retailers and online platforms — making them easily available to young people.

Eric Gagnon, Vice President of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs at Imperial Tobacco Canada, criticized the policy:

“The government cracked down on the country’s only legal, regulated nicotine pouch, but fueled the black market. ZONNIC was never the problem — it was the solution for many smokers.”

In addition to the rising risks of illegal products, smokers attempting to quit are also heavily impacted. In remote regions with limited pharmacy access, many adults have lost convenient access to ZONNIC. Pharmacists, meanwhile, are burdened with additional administrative tasks, diverting resources away from patient care.

On the economic front, the policy has hit the convenience retail sector hard, threatening about 200,000 related jobs nationwide and leaving small businesses dependent on legal nicotine product sales struggling to survive.

Previously, ZONNIC had been approved by Health Canada as a natural health product and smoking cessation aid, and was endorsed by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto. Data showed that in convenience stores selling ZONNIC, cigarette sales saw double-digit declines, demonstrating its positive effect in helping smokers quit.

Imperial Tobacco Canada reiterated its support for the federal government’s goal of reducing the smoking rate to below 5% by 2035, but stressed that this can only be achieved through wider access to innovative cessation tools.

Gagnon emphasized:

“We are willing to work with Health Canada to ease the burden on pharmacists and help more adults quit smoking for good.”

The company urged Canada to adopt evidence-based public health policies to ensure that cessation tools remain conveniently accessible, rather than making the path to quitting smoking more difficult.