Don’t tax nicotine pouches like cigarettes

Published 1:30 am Sunday, March 1, 2026

The Washington State Legislature should repeal its 95 percent tax on nicotine pouches.

Combustible cigarettes remain one of the leading preventable causes of death in the United States, responsible for more than 480,000 deaths annually according to the CDC. The overwhelming majority of tobacco-related disease is caused by smoke; not nicotine itself.

Nicotine pouches contain no tobacco leaf and involve no combustion. No smoke. No tar. No carbon monoxide. Public health research has consistently shown that non-combustible nicotine products dramatically reduce exposure to the toxins that cause cancer, heart disease, and lung disease.

The National Academies of Sciences has found that switching completely from combustible cigarettes to non-combustible products reduces exposure to harmful chemicals.

Nicotine pouches function like nicotine gum and patches: they come in graduated strengths and allow users to taper. They are a harm-reduction tool.

I have smoked and chewed tobacco since the sixth grade. I am 55 years old. Nicotine pouches are the first product that has meaningfully moved me away from smoking and chewing. They eliminate smoke, brown spit, stained teeth, and secondhand exposure. They reduce public nuisance and health risk at the same time.

Yet Washington taxes them at 95 percent. That is not public health policy. That is fiscal opportunism.

If harm reduction is the goal, the tax structure should reflect relative risk. Instead, the state treats a smoke-free product like a combustible one.

That is short-sighted.

Encourage smokers to move down the risk ladder. Do not tax the ladder away.

Marcus Irwin

Everett