Canadian health minister Mark Holland is vowing to stop the sale of nicotine pouches across the country “as fast as possible”, accusing the tobacco industry of misrepresenting the product when it applied to Health Canada for authorisation.
“The way that this was presented is that it was for the purposes of cessation,” Holland told reporters on his way out of a cabinet meeting at the end of November. “In their marketing and their approach, it exists in a completely different way. We were duped.”
Holland, a former head of the Heart and Stroke Foundation in Ontario, said the government will also review the process that led to nicotine pouches being approved for sale in Canada.
