Kids also regularly ingest large volumes of flinstone multivitamins and melatonin gummies. Does that change your position on the health and safety of these supplements? Should our nanny-state ban those too?
I'll stop you right there, because I know what you're thinking, and nope: Zyn containers already have a child safety lock on them. Its the bane of existence for the adults who buy them, you can ask any of them, but they already have that.
The reality is, anyone who has suggested that a ban on highly-appetizing flavors of nicotine pouches would be an effective deterrent to accidental underage consumption, has very clearly never tasted any of these products.
Many of the candy and fruit-flavored vapes are legitimately delicious tasting, through and through. The same is not as correct for nicotine pouches. These flavors only barely cover up what is best described as a highly-chemical, astringent, punch to the mouth, vomit inducing taste much akin to chlorinated pool water. They are not candy. They don't taste like candy. They are not sold in containers that look like candy.
Why are rates up? Because these products have become significantly more popular! Zyn sales have gone up by bonkers numbers basically every year for the past decade [1]. Any report that suggests accidental consumption is up should be met with a "great job sherlock, really putting that government pork funding to work", because even intentional consumption is up. In fact, statements like the following from your link should raise even further questions about the efficacy of their findings:
> Nicotine pouches were also more likely to be associated with serious medical outcomes or hospital admissions than other nicotine products like gum/lozenges, e-liquids, powder/granules, and tablets/capsules/caplets.
What is "nicotine powder, granules, tablets, capsules, caplets"? That's nothing. There is no such thing as population-level consumption of "nicotine powder". No one buys that. No one uses it. They're clearly just making stuff up to scare people. Even an assertion that medical outcomes from the consumption of nicotine pouches are worse than e.g. lozenges or e-liquids is extremely suspect, from a first principals perspective. Many popular e-liquids, such as Juul, contains as much as 5mg of nicotine per milliliter; and because its a liquid, its extremely bio-available, it gets absorbed through every mucousal membrane that liquid touches, and anyone who has touched vape eliquid can attest that the smell takes days to wash off once it touches your skin.
Bad article, bad research, I don't believe a word it purports to be true.
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi...
On the rare occasions of exposure by a user exhaling in public next to me I found it worse than passively inhaling cigarette smoke.