SEOUL -- On International Women’s Day (March 8), South Korean policymakers are being warned that new restrictions on oral nicotine pouches risk limiting women’s access to an innovation linked to one of the world’s sharpest declines in female smoking.

The warning accompanies the release of Empowerment in a Pouch, a report showing how access to tobacco-free nicotine pouches has accelerated Sweden’s progress towards becoming smoke-free.

“Sweden’s experience shows what happens when women are given realistic alternatives to smoking,” said Professor Marewa Glover, behavioural scientist and co-author. “When safer options are accessible, women quit at scale. When they are regulated as if they were cigarettes, that opportunity is diminished.”

From 24 April 2026, South Korea will regulate all oral nicotine pouches as tobacco products under amendments to the Tobacco Business Act.

Public health experts warn that classifying low-risk, smoke-free products in the same category as cigarettes risks undermining their potential to reduce smoking, particularly among women.

The report shows that since nicotine pouches became available in Sweden in 2016:

· Women’s smoking rates have fallen by nearly 50%, now among the lowest globally.
· Women’s quit-smoking rates increased around threefold, putting Sweden on track to become the first · smoke-free country (adult daily smoking below 5%).
· Female smoking is declining six times faster in Sweden than elsewhere in Europe, according to WHO statistics.

These findings are relevant for South Korea, where smoking-related disease remains a major public health burden and female smoking is widely believed to be underreported due to social stigma.

Nicotine pouches contain no tobacco and involve no combustion. Used under the lip, they deliver pharmaceutical-grade nicotine without smoke, vapour or odour. Survey and focus-group research show women value their discretion, convenience and compatibility with professional and social life.

Participants rated nicotine pouches as the most effective quitting aid, outperforming vapes and traditional nicotine replacement therapies. Women ranked pouches almost three times higher than vapes and 56% higher than nicotine gum.

“As South Korea implements changes to its tobacco law, it faces a critical choice,” said Dr Delon Human, co-author and former secretary-general of the World Medical Association. “Regulation should reflect risk. Treating smoke-free products as cigarettes risks protecting the most dangerous product on the market and leaving women with fewer viable ways to quit.”