I started using nicotine pouches instead of smoking or vaping back in the US, it’s becoming a pretty big thing now. Not the ones you put on your skin, but the ones that you put under your lip. Some of the most popular brands are Zyns, Velo, and Lyft. They are considered tobacco free because they use “nicotine salts”.
They are now sold everywhere in the US, and UK and was surprised not to see any smokeless options here. Has anyone found somewhere to buy them locally in Taiwan? Or online (if it is legal of course)?
From what I understand, snus isn’t legal to import because it’s not on the list of approved types of tobacco, while nicotine pouches aren’t legal to import because they’re classed as pharmaceutical products (need an import license, which I believe is practically impossible to get for these things).
See these previous threads - the first one from me after having some confiscated by customs:
I do occasionally run into random Scandinavian people who bring it in with them when they arrive, but buying it locally or having it mailed in seems like pretty much a no-go now and for the foreseeable future (at least for me - customs have confiscated my orders twice now, so I’m probably on some list and haven’t attempted it since my thread above ).
Maybe nicotine gum would be an acceptable (albeit inferior) alternative if you need the fix. Some pharmacies really overcharge for it, but it’s like NT$799 per box at the Shanghai Union Dispensary near Ximen/NTUH (cheapest place I found when I was using it, though haven’t needed it for a few months).
Only way around this is get domestic tobacco/alcohol monopoly to make smokeless tobacco. The reason for weird laws on this is because of them. Either that or try and grow your own tobacco. No idea the legalities of this. Probably fine for personal use but not if you are selling.
And with anything Taiwanese if you’re not following the majority then it’s basically a niche item. In Taiwan it seems it’s all cigarettes and there are no deviation from this. I have no idea what pipe smokers use.
Or chew betel nuts… that seems to be how they deal with smokeless fixes.
Yeah, I’m not really going to become a tobacco farmer and snus manufacturer to get around it, tbh…
(I did actually read into the laws for importing recently, and IIRC it’s more difficult/costly to get a tobacco manufacturing license than it is to get an import license. I don’t remember reading of any exceptions for personal use. I don’t want to become a tobacco farmer anyway.)
Yeah, only realistic way is if the domestic monopoly were to take an interest in it, which doesn’t seem likely as you said.
It’s either that or you get companies like Phillip Morris to get import license to get snus into Taiwan, but that would require that enough majority of Taiwanese wants snus to begin with. I can see this happening with China (I wouldn’t be surprised if you can get snus there) but not Taiwan. The market is simply way too small for any global corporations to care… Taiwan might as well be Tattoine for all they care. I actually get a lot of products, even American made ones, through Taobao simply because they have far better availability compared to Taiwan, and with the way shipping gets massively delayed because COVID becomes a convenient excuse to do their job poorly, I get quicker (and cheaper) shipping out of China than deal with American sellers who can’t tell Taiwan from Thailand.
Have you ever thought about getting loose tobacco (you know for pipes and stuff) and figuring out a way to turn that into snus?
I’ve thought about it actually, but there’s some processing involved and it’d probably end up pretty vile. I prefer nicotine pouches these days as well anyway, rather than actual snus (possibly easier to make in principle, but the pure nicotine and other raw materials would be difficult/impossible to get here).
It’s not an immediate problem for me in any case. I’m good for this stuff for a while.
I don’t know I always thought snus was pretty vile, but I’m not much of a smoker.
Maybe you can figure out how to extract nicotine out of cigarette ash or dried tobacco, but I gotta warn you, pure nicotine is pretty nasty as far as toxicity goes. Cigarette ash is actually used as insecticide.
I used to like it, but recently I’ve found it a bit more jittery/anxiety-inducing than pure nicotine pouches for some reason (and the flavor isn’t as nice).
Yeah, too much hassle, I’m not doing that.
Thanks, but no warning necessary. My background is in chemistry research, and nicotine isn’t the worst thing I’ve handled. I’ve used pure nicotine before (for making vape liquids) - it’s fine, just need to not be careless about it, as with your lathe.
Yea, I’d say the worst chemical I handled is probably potassium dichromate. I heard it’s not a nice chemical though, at least for the environment. I like chemistry a lot, but some of the stuff I see on youtube is really crazy and I’d never want to try it at home without access to a proper lab. I did use bromoform back in the states to separate out the heavier minerals (the stuff is really dense and most normal rocks floats in it, it’s also carcinogenic). It was expensive too, something like 600 dollars a liter. Could have just gotten bleach, acetone, and some sodium bromide and make the stuff…
Lathes are actually an incredibly dangerous machine by the way… if it can spin a 100kg piece of steel at 1000rpm with ease, it will do the same to you. No long sleeves, no ties, and tie up that long hair. Also if you spin something unbalanced… imagine a 2 ton machine jumping across the floor like a washing machine…
Saw some video of guys using Zyn nicotine pouches, no tobacco, to get high.
Some of them said the buzz from Zyn is so good that they don’t need to drink beer. Using one every couple hours. Maybe they aren’t regular smoker so they get more of a buzz from it.
I don’t know if they’re joking completely or maybe they get a little buzz or something.
Reading this post, it seems that there’s a fairly big risk of problems with customs if I tried to order nicotine pouches and have them sent here but that it might be possible to bring them over in my luggage. Can anyone share their experience or opinion on this? I’m heading to the states for summer break and would love to bring some Zyn nicotine pouches back with me if I thought it wouldn’t get me in trouble. Any help appreciated.
We have been trying to find a distributor for our CHIP nicotine pouches in Taiwan. If someone knows a tobacco products (cigarette/vape) wholesaler or a smoke shop that would be interested, please let me know.
I think you’d want to look into the legalities first. They’re essentially unavailable here — see the discussion earlier in the thread, and also this thread:
I guess the first step would be getting an import license, which I suspect you’d have a hard time getting granted. Maybe not impossible, but I think not easy either.
If you did manage to sort that out, I’d probably become a customer.
Yeah, for that reason we would like to partner up with a company that already has an existing tobacco importer license. Even though our products do not contain any tobacco leaves, it most likely falls under the same legislation.
Good to know there would be demand.
I don’t think it does, and this is what I was getting at when I said about checking the legal situation. AFAIK, they’re not one of the permitted categories of tobacco products, and I believe tobacco-free ones are classed as pharmaceuticals (so a different licensing route)
If I was going to try this, I think I’d start by contacting some of the specialist tobacco and tobacco/alcohol stores directly to see if they have any interest in importing these and whether they think it’d be possible (I don’t have any specific recommendations, but a few come up on Google Maps). These will obviously have experience importing niche tobacco brands, but no idea whether they all buy through a small number of distributors/wholesalers.
Have you actually tried this yourself? Or are there limits to where even those with an import license can’t do? What about bringing them in when you travel, will customs seize those as well? Taiwan’s got some weird food import laws… for example there’s a certain peanut snack from China that can’t be ordered in, and there’s a fine for doing so. However it says you can bring it in on your person when traveling, but must be for personal consumption and there’s a qty limit.
Taiwan’s got weird tobacco law because of TTL… Like nicotine containing vapes being completely illegal, as such few here ever vape (I’ve seen people vape but it’s not a majority, in the US I hardly see people smoke cigarettes, they all vape).
No, I haven’t tried getting an import license myself. I did look into the rules a couple of years ago though, mostly out of curiosity as to how difficult that would be to do (either as an individual or via a company, and either as a tobacco product or a pharmaceutical).
There’s a surprising amount of information available in English, but my impression was that an import license was unlikely to be granted given how Taiwan has been cracking down on other tobacco alternatives in the last several years (particularly vaping). It wasn’t 100% clear to me whether the modified Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act covers snus/nicotine pouches, but there are customs webpages suggesting it does and those aren’t allowed to be imported.
I was also told by the customs guy that confiscated some of my previous orders that these couldn’t be imported (by mail) because they’re not a permitted tobacco product.
No idea. It probably doesn’t matter though, if import licenses aren’t being granted.
It’s a gray area at best, I would say (for small quantities). Ask the next Swedish person you run into. No further comment.
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