Nicotine Pouch Restrictions

A nicotine pouch is a small pre-portioned pouch of nicotine powder held between the cheek and gum. It contains no tobacco leaf and produces nothing to spit. The products sold in Massachusetts include Zyn, On!, Velo and Lucy. Because they are not tobacco leaf, they sit awkwardly inside tobacco law: Somerville’s Board of Health was advised in February 2025 that “oral pouches were not included in the State definition of tobacco products.”

That gap is what municipal boards of health have been filling. They can write local health regulations under G.L. c. 111, § 31, and several have used that power to restrict pouches. The restrictions are not all the same thing, and the difference matters to a retailer and to a customer. There are four distinct approaches, one page each.

The four are not independently invented in each town. They are options in a single model regulation that circulates among Massachusetts municipalities, where the pouch provision sits at Section G and comes with a checklist. One copy in Mansfield’s production has both pouch options marked “YES.” The draft that reached Easthampton still carried the choice in brackets: the cap language or the adult-only language, for the board to pick. Both documents are linked on the pages that follow.