The snus and nicotine pouch glossary

This is a working glossary of the words used on snus and nicotine pouch packaging, in regulatory documents and in the research literature. Where a term has a legal definition I have used the legal one and quoted it. Where a term is only marketing, I say so.

Most confusion in this category comes from three words doing too much work at once. “Snus” means one thing in Swedish food law and another on an American shelf. “Tobacco-free” describes what is in the pouch, not how the product is regulated. “Strength” can mean milligrams in the pouch, milligrams per gram of filler, or milligrams that actually reach you, and those are three different numbers.

So this glossary is organised by what each term actually governs: the products, the formats, the numbers, the chemistry, the law, and the pharmacology. At the end there is a short list of words I think you should treat with suspicion, and the sources for everything above them.

How to read this glossary

Three conventions run through it.

First, where a definition comes from a statute or a regulator, it is quoted and linked, and the quote is the definition — not my summary of it. That matters more than it sounds. The EU ban on snus turns on the exact wording of one sentence, and people routinely describe its effect wrongly because they are working from a paraphrase.

Second, where a term has no official definition, I say that rather than inventing one. There are several of these, and the honest answer is more useful than a confident guess.

Third, I have separated what a product is from what a regulator has concluded about it. Regulator conclusions are quoted exactly and attributed. Nothing here says any of these products is safe, because no regulator says that.

The products

Snus. A moist, ground oral tobacco, used by placing it under the upper lip. In EU law it falls inside the category “tobacco for oral use”, which Directive 2014/40/EU defines at Article 2(8) as “all tobacco products for oral use, except those intended to be inhaled or chewed, made wholly or partly of tobacco, in powder or in particulate form or in any combination of those forms, particularly those presented in sachet portions or porous sachets”.

Swedish snus. Snus made by the Swedish process, in which the ground tobacco is heat-treated rather than fermented. The US National Cancer Institute and CDC describe it this way: “Swedish snus, a snuff-like product, is made from pasteurized and air-cured tobacco that is not fermented. Pasteurization reduces or eliminates bacteria, including those that convert nitrate to nitrite, a key precursor for TSNAs.” (Smokeless Tobacco and Public Health: A Global Perspective, 2014.) Full detail in the Swedish snus guide.

Nicotine pouch. A white pouch containing nicotine and a non-tobacco filler, used the same way as portioned snus. The US Food and Drug Administration describes them as “small fiber pouches that, unlike some other types of oral tobacco products, can be used without spitting” and notes that “during use, these pouches are typically placed between the gum and upper lip, where the nicotine is absorbed into the body” (FDA, Other Tobacco Products).

Moist snuff / dip. The American fermented oral tobacco. Distinct from Swedish snus in process and, as measured, in chemistry — see TSNA below.

Chew bag. A pouched oral tobacco sold as a product to be chewed rather than parked. The distinction is not cosmetic: the EU definition of “tobacco for oral use” quoted above expressly excludes products “intended to be inhaled or chewed”, which is the drafting that lets chewing tobacco be sold in the EU while snus cannot.

Dissolvable tobacco. Compressed tobacco in lozenge, strip or stick form that dissolves in the mouth. A separate regulatory category in the US, and one New York City names explicitly in its flavour rules.

Nicotine-free pouch. A pouch with the same filler and flavourings and no nicotine at all. Covered separately in the nicotine-free and functional pouch guide.

Formats and portions

Lös (loose) snus. Unpouched snus, hand-formed into a portion. Sold, per Swedish Match’s own description of its production, “mainly packaged in paraffin-coated cardboard cans” — a commercial source, and flagged as one.

Portion snus. Snus pre-packed into small porous sachets.

Original portion, white portion, white dry portion. These are the three portion types you will see on Swedish cans, and they are recognised in regulatory documents: the FDA’s scientific review of the General Snus modified risk applications records the products as including portioned snus “in ‘original,’ ‘white,’ and ‘dry’ portion types” (FDA, Scientific Review of Modified Risk Tobacco Product Application), and FDA’s authorised product list names “Portion Original”, “Portion White” and “Dry Mint Portion Original Mini” as distinct products.

What I could not find, in any statute, regulator document, peer-reviewed paper or company regulatory filing, is a published technical definition of what physically distinguishes an original portion from a white one. Every source that offers one is a retailer or a blog. So: the terms are real, they are used consistently by manufacturers, and they appear in FDA’s own product naming — but if you want to know exactly what the manufacturing difference is, I cannot point you at a document that states it, and I am not going to fill the gap from memory.

Slim, mini, large. Pouch dimensions. No regulatory definition; each manufacturer sets its own.

All-white. A marketing term for pouches with no tobacco-derived colouring, which do not stain and do not drip. It describes appearance, not composition or strength.

Strength and dosing terms

This is where most of the real confusion lives, and it is worth slowing down.

mg per pouch. The nicotine in one pouch. This is how ZYN, VELO and most pouch brands label, and how Czech and Danish law measure. Czechia’s Decree No 141/2023 provides that “One nicotine pouch dose may contain a maximum of 12 mg of nicotine.” Denmark’s BEK nr 249 of 2025 provides that “Nikotinposer må maksimalt indeholde 9,0 mg nikotin pr. pose” — a maximum of 9.0 mg per pouch — in force from 1 July 2025.

mg/g. Nicotine per gram of product. This is how snus is conventionally labelled and how Finland legislates: its notified amendment to the Tobacco Act sets “a maximum of 20 milligrams of nicotine per gram of product” (TRIS notification 2024/952).

The two units are not interchangeable without knowing the pouch weight, and pouch weights vary — an independent chemical characterisation of 30 pouches from 14 brands found weights from 368.6 to 663.3 mg (Han et al., Microchemical Journal, 2025). So a “20 mg/g” product and a “9 mg/pouch” product cannot be compared at a glance, and I would not trust any table that does compare them without stating the pouch weight. The full treatment is in the strengths guide.

Free nicotine (unprotonated, or free-base, nicotine). The uncharged fraction of the nicotine, which is the part that crosses the lining of your mouth. The proportion depends on pH. A CDC laboratory study of 37 pouch products measured pH from 6.86 to 10.1 and free nicotine from 7.7% to 99.2% of total (Stanfill et al., Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 2021). That range is enormous, and it is the single best reason not to read the mg figure as a strength rating.

Extraction rate. The fraction of the pouch’s nicotine that actually leaves the pouch during use. Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment states that “Pharmacokinetic studies show that at least half of the nicotine in the pouch can be absorbed” (BfR Opinion 023/2022). A peer-reviewed risk assessment reports extraction “between 50 % and 60 % of the total nicotine content”, and a figure of “62 % of total nicotine content” after 60 minutes (Reimann et al., Toxicology Reports, 2024).

Chemistry and product-safety terms

TSNAs (tobacco-specific nitrosamines). A group of carcinogens formed from tobacco alkaloids. IARC’s monograph on smokeless tobacco explains that “these compounds are formed from their alkaloid precursors and from nitrite or nitrate predominantly during tobacco curing, fermentation and ageing” (IARC Monographs Vol. 89). Because they are formed during fermentation, process matters — which is the whole point of pasteurisation in Swedish snus.

NNN and NNK. The two TSNAs of greatest concern. Stepanov and colleagues describe them as the compounds “believed to be involved in the induction of oral cancer in smokeless tobacco users” (Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 2008, PMC2892835). Their measurements: Swedish General snus at 1.66 µg NNN/g and 0.464 µg NNK/g, against an average across traditional US brands of 4.41 µg NNN/g and 1.20 µg NNK/g.

Worth keeping in proportion. IARC cautions in the same volume that “even in Swedish snus, levels of TSNA are comparable with those in cigarette smoke”. Lower is not low.

GothiaTek. A set of maximum permitted levels for undesirable substances in snus, published by Swedish Match, whose own description is that “the starting point for GOTHIATEK® is the requirement for maximum allowable levels – limits – of certain undesirable substances in Swedish snus” (Swedish Match). It sets NNN+NNK at 0.95 mg/kg, among others.

It is a company standard, self-set and self-audited. It is not a legal limit and it is not the product of any standards body — I looked for an ISO or CEN equivalent and there is none. Useful as a benchmark; not a certification.

pH adjusters. Alkaline salts added to raise pH and so increase the free nicotine fraction. IARC puts the mechanism plainly: “Ammonia, ammonium carbonate and sodium carbonate are applied to control nicotine delivery by raising pH and subsequently the level of unprotonated nicotine which is most readily absorbed through the mouth into the bloodstream” (IARC Monographs Vol. 100E).

Humectant. A moisture-retaining ingredient, typically propylene glycol or glycerol. Han et al. detected them in 23 of 30 pouches analysed.

Regulatory terms: Europe

TPD. The Tobacco Products Directive, Directive 2014/40/EU. The framework instrument for tobacco across the EU.

Article 17. The snus ban, in one sentence: “Member States shall prohibit the placing on the market of tobacco for oral use, without prejudice to Article 151 of the Act of Accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden.”

The Swedish derogation. Not granted by the TPD. It comes from Sweden’s 1994 Act of Accession, and the TPD merely preserves it — which is why Article 17 is expressed “without prejudice to” it. Recital 20 explains the consequence: responsibility for regulating snus ingredients “should, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, remain with Sweden, where the sale of this product is permitted pursuant to Article 151 of the Act of Accession”.

The derogation is territorial. It permits sale in Sweden; it is not an export licence.

Outside the TPD. Tobacco-free nicotine pouches are not covered by the Directive at all, because it regulates tobacco and they contain none. The European Commission confirmed in an answer to a parliamentary question in October 2023 that “tobacco-free nicotine pouches are currently outside the scope of the Tobacco Products Directive 2014/40/EU (TPD)”. That single fact explains why national pouch rules across Europe diverge so wildly: there is no EU floor, so each member state has legislated alone.

Regulatory terms: United States

Tobacco product. Defined at section 201(rr) of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act as “any product made or derived from tobacco that is intended for human consumption, including any component, part, or accessory of a tobacco product”. Note that this sweeps in tobacco-free pouches made with tobacco-derived nicotine.

Non-tobacco nicotine. Synthetic nicotine would have escaped that definition, so Congress closed the gap. FDA records “a federal law which went into effect on April 14, 2022, clarifying FDA’s authority to regulate tobacco products containing nicotine from any source, including synthetic nicotine” (FDA).

PMTA. Premarket Tobacco Product Application — the route by which a new tobacco product becomes legally marketable in the US. On 16 January 2025 FDA granted marketing orders to 20 ZYN products. What that does and does not mean, in FDA’s own words: “While today’s actions permit these specific tobacco products to be legally marketed in the U.S. to adults 21 and older, it does not mean these tobacco products are safe, nor are they ‘FDA approved.’ There is no safe tobacco product; youth should not use tobacco products and adults who do not use tobacco products should not start.” (FDA press announcement.)

MRTP. Modified Risk Tobacco Product — a separate and much higher bar, which permits a specific comparative health claim. Two matter here.

General Snus received MRTP orders on 22 October 2019, renewed on 7 November 2024 for eight products, permitting exactly this sentence and no other: “Using General Snus instead of cigarettes puts you at a lower risk of mouth cancer, heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis.” (FDA.)

On 30 June 2026 FDA extended the same formula to a tobacco-free pouch for the first time, authorising 20 ZYN products to carry: “Using ZYN instead of cigarettes puts you at a lower risk of mouth cancer, heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis.” (FDA.)

Read those claims precisely. They are comparative and substitutional — “instead of cigarettes”. They are not statements about using the product rather than using nothing. FDA pairs both with “There is no safe tobacco product, and those who do not use tobacco products should not start”, and states that an MRTP order “refers to specific products, not an entire class of tobacco products”.

Alternative nicotine product. A newer US state-level category. New York’s Tax Law now defines it as “any noncombustible product, other than vapor products, which contains nicotine but not tobacco and is intended for human consumption, whether chewed, absorbed, dissolved, or ingested by any other means”. The definition turns on the absence of tobacco, which is why it captures pouches and not snus. See the New York guide.

Pharmacology terms

Buccal absorption. Absorption through the lining of the mouth. The mechanism is pH-dependent: the US Surgeon General’s report states that “at a high (alkaline) pH, nicotine is in the nonionized state, which is associated with the ability to more easily pass through lipoprotein membranes”, and that “nicotine from oral products that have an alkaline pH can be readily but more gradually absorbed through the oral mucosa” (How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease).

First-pass metabolism. The liver’s removal of a substance before it reaches general circulation. It is why swallowing nicotine works poorly and parking it works well: “unlike when it is swallowed, nicotine’s bioavailability is greater through the lung or through the oral mucosa because nicotine reaches systemic circulation before passing through the liver (first-pass metabolism)” (same source).

Cmax. The highest blood concentration reached after a dose.

Tmax. The time taken to reach it. The number that most distinguishes pouches from cigarettes: in an independently funded head-to-head trial, pouches reached peak at 30 minutes against 6 minutes for a cigarette (Przulj et al., Psychopharmacology, 2025).

AUC. Area under the curve — total exposure over time, as distinct from the height of the peak. A product can match a cigarette on AUC while being nowhere near it on Tmax, and pouches generally do.

pKa. The pH at which a weak base is half ionised. For nicotine, sources differ: Benowitz gives 8.0, the Surgeon General’s 2014 report gives 8.5. I would say “approximately 8” and not pretend the literature is unanimous.

The mechanism in full is in how nicotine pouches actually work.

Words to treat with suspicion

“Tobacco-free.” Accurate about contents, misleading about everything else. A tobacco-free pouch is still a regulated tobacco product in the United States, still delivers nicotine, and is still addictive.

“Safe” or “safer.” No regulator says any of these products is safe. FDA’s authorised comparative claims are narrow, closed lists of named diseases, tied to substitution for cigarettes, and issued alongside an explicit statement that there is no safe tobacco product. Anything broader than that sentence is not a regulator’s conclusion.

“Smokeless.” True and unhelpful. It groups Swedish snus with fermented American moist snuff and with South Asian products whose measured chemistry is very different. The EU’s SCENIHR committee concluded of smokeless tobacco products as a class that “STP are addictive and their use is hazardous to health”, while noting a high risk of oral cancer “has been shown for various STP but has not been proven for Swedish moist snuff (snus)” — an absence of proof, not a finding of safety.

“Nicotine-free” on a pouch with nicotine salts. Read the ingredient panel, not the front.

“Clinically proven.” Ask by whom, and check the funding. Much of the pouch pharmacokinetic literature is manufacturer-funded — a scoping review in Nicotine & Tobacco Research found 17 of 62 included studies were industry-funded, and noted that “industry-funded studies find substantially less cytotoxicity compared to cigarettes”. That does not make those studies wrong. It makes the funding line part of the result.

Frequently asked questions

Is snus the same thing as a nicotine pouch? No. Snus contains tobacco; a nicotine pouch does not. They are used identically and regulated completely differently — the EU bans the first and does not cover the second.

Why is snus banned in the EU but legal in Sweden? Because the ban in Article 17 of the TPD operates “without prejudice to” Sweden’s 1994 accession derogation. Sweden negotiated the carve-out on joining, and it survives in the current Directive.

Does a higher mg number mean a stronger product? Not reliably. The number on the tin is content, not dose. pH determines how much of it is in the absorbable free form, and measured free nicotine across pouch products ranges from 7.7% to 99.2% of total.

What does “FDA authorised” mean? That the product may lawfully be sold to adults 21 and over in the US. FDA states in terms that it “does not mean these tobacco products are safe, nor are they ‘FDA approved.'”

Is there an official definition of “white portion”? Not one I can find in any statute, regulator document or peer-reviewed source. FDA’s product listings use the term, but no public document defines the manufacturing difference.

Sources

• Directive 2014/40/EU (Tobacco Products Directive) — Articles 2(8) and 17, recital 20
• European Commission, answer to written question E-002498/2023, 25 October 2023
• FDA — Other Tobacco Products
• FDA — marketing authorisation for 20 ZYN products, 16 January 2025
• FDA — ZYN modified risk orders, 30 June 2026
• FDA — General Snus MRTP applications; Scientific Review of MRTP Application
• FDA — non-tobacco nicotine products
• NCI/CDC, Smokeless Tobacco and Public Health: A Global Perspective (2014), chapter 3
• IARC Monographs Vol. 89; Vol. 100E
• Stepanov et al., Nicotine & Tobacco Research 2008;10(12):1773–82
• Stanfill et al., “Characterization of Total and Unprotonated (Free) Nicotine Content of Nicotine Pouch Products”, Nicotine & Tobacco Research 2021;23(9):1590–6 (CDC authors)
• Han et al., “Comprehensive chemical characterization of nicotine pouches”, Microchemical Journal 2025;219:116196
• Reimann et al., “Beyond smoking: Risk assessment of nicotine in pouches”, Toxicology Reports 2024;13:101779
• BfR, Health risk assessment of nicotine pouches, Opinion 023/2022
• US Surgeon General, How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease, chapter 4
• SCENIHR, Health Effects of Smokeless Tobacco Products, 2008
• Czechia, Decree No 141/2023; Denmark, BEK nr 249 (2025); Finland, TRIS notification
• New York Tax Law § 470

Nicotine is addictive. No tobacco or nicotine product is safe, and completely stopping is the lowest-risk option. This site is for adults who already use nicotine — 21+ in the United States, 18+ or your local legal age elsewhere. Nothing here is medical advice.