At just 17, Adeola, a Nigerian teenager, never imagined that trying a strawberry-flavoured vape a few months earlier would set her on this path, TRT Afrika reported in June 2025. What began as a simple experiment soon became something she struggled to control. Now, her hands sometimes shook when the craving for nicotine hit. She […]
At just 17, Adeola, a Nigerian teenager, never imagined that trying a strawberry-flavoured vape a few months earlier would set her on this path, TRT Afrika reported in June 2025.
What began as a simple experiment soon became something she struggled to control. Now, her hands sometimes shook when the craving for nicotine hit. She knew she needed to eat, but the urge was sometimes so strong that she spent her food money on nicotine pouches instead.
“It tasted like candy,” she tells TRT Afrika. “My friends said it wasn’t even real smoking… I didn’t know it would control me like this.”
The relief never lasted long. Before she knew it, the craving returned, leaving her trapped in a cycle she had never anticipated when she first tried the vape.
What looks like harmless, fruity vapour may introduce a young person to a habit that is difficult to break. Imagine being at a party with friends when someone brings out a colourful, handy device with fruity smells from different variants like banana and watermelon. It may look like something out of a sci-fi movie rather than the relics considered as cigarettes, and everyone seems curious. Trying it may not feel like a big deal. But what happens when that first puff becomes a regular habit?
This is the concern with the new generation of nicotine products entering Nigeria’s market. Over the past five years, the way nicotine is packaged, presented and consumed has continued to evolve. Traditional cigarettes are no longer the only products demanding our attention. Sleek vaping devices, flavoured e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches are changing how nicotine is introduced to consumers, particularly young people. Nigeria needs to take this development seriously before experimentation becomes a much wider public-health problem.
Evolving Marketing Tactics
Big Tobacco has long viewed Nigeria’s large youth population as an important market for future profits. A 2020 study published in BioMed Central (BMC) Public Health and available through the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central, found that transnational tobacco companies had actively targeted young people in Nigeria since the 1990s, viewing them as both existing and potential future consumers. Today, that strategy is taking on a different appearance.
In its 2026 report, New Smoke Trap: New and Emerging Nicotine and Tobacco Products, Youth Exposure and Policy Gaps in Nigeria, Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) documented 781 nicotine- and tobacco-related products, including 573 new and emerging products. The surveillance, conducted in Lagos, Enugu and the Federal Capital Territory between October and December 2025, identified 522 e-cigarette variants, 38 nicotine pouch products and 13 heated tobacco products.
What stands out is not just the variety, but how these products are presented. Some resemble pens, USB drives or other electronic gadgets. Others come in bright packaging, with appealing flavours and puff counts prominently displayed. To a young person, these devices may look fashionable, convenient or simply interesting. They may not carry the same stigma as cigarettes, especially when they appear in social settings or on social media. The concern is that the product’s image can overshadow what it delivers. The technology may be different, but nicotine remains addictive.
From Curiosity to a Habit
A 2024 scoping review published in Health Science Reports examined six studies on e-cigarette use in Nigeria. Lifetime use ranged from 5.8% to 19.8% across the populations studied. A 2021 study published in Public Library of Science ONE (PLOS ONE) also found that 11.8% (6 out of 51) of participants who had previously tried e-cigarettes reported using them in the past 30 days. The study, conducted among adolescents and young adults in Lagos, also identified associations with factors such as having friends who used e-cigarettes and alcohol consumption.
These figures provide a reason to pay closer attention to how these products reach young people.
The review also identified peer influence, anxiety, and previous tobacco and alcohol use as factors associated with e-cigarette use in some of the studies. This matters because young people do not always make decisions about nicotine in isolation. Curiosity, social acceptance, and the desire to fit in can all shape whether someone decides to try a product.
A young person sees friends using a sweet-flavoured vape and decides to try it. The experience does not feel as harsh as traditional smoking, and the device looks more like a lifestyle accessory than a tobacco product. Because others are using it without any obvious immediate consequences, the risks may seem distant.
The first experience may end there, but for some users, repeated exposure can lead to regular use and nicotine dependence.
The Young People Behind the Numbers
The most worrying aspect of this trend is the risk that young people underestimate the dangers until nicotine becomes part of their routine. We often recognise the danger of smoking when we see someone holding a cigarette.
Yet nicotine is not harmless simply because it is delivered differently. During adolescence, the brain is still developing, and nicotine exposure can affect functions associated with attention, learning, mood and impulse control. Dependence can also lead to cravings and withdrawal symptoms, including irritability, difficulty concentrating and anxiety.
Nigeria has a particularly strong reason to act early. More than 60% of the country’s population is under 30, according to the National Population Commission. This is a generation whose health, education and productivity will shape the country’s future. Allowing nicotine products to become normal fixtures of youth culture could create problems that families, schools and the health system will have to manage for years.
The country already bears a significant tobacco-related health and economic burden. The Tobacco Atlas estimates that smoking causes about 20,700 deaths annually in Nigeria, with an annual cost of illness of approximately ₦211 billion. We should not wait for equally extensive evidence of harm from newer products before taking reasonable steps to prevent young people from becoming nicotine-dependent.
What Nigeria Should Do Now
Tobacco control must be more proactive than reactive. Governments should not wait until a new nicotine product becomes popular among young people before investigating its availability, marketing and potential risks. Regular market surveillance, youth surveys and digital monitoring should help identify emerging products and trends early. Research findings must inform timely policy decisions, not merely document a problem after it has taken hold.
The law must keep pace with the market without compromising public health. Nigeria’s National Tobacco Control Act, 2015, and its 2019 Regulations provide an important foundation, but emerging nicotine products expose gaps that require attention. The National Tobacco Control Act (Amendment) Bill, 2025, raises further concerns through its proposed “harm reduction” provisions and its classification of e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products and nicotine pouches as “non-combustible products.” Public-health groups warn that these provisions could weaken existing safeguards while permitting forms of advertising, point-of-sale promotion, event sponsorship and online sales subject to age verification. Rather than creating new routes for marketing and access, the amendment should close regulatory gaps and ensure that protecting young people remains central to Nigeria’s tobacco-control framework.
Existing protections need to be enforced. The National Film and Video Censors Board’s 2024 Regulations prohibit the promotion and glamorisation of tobacco and nicotine products in films, music videos and skits. These rules should be consistently monitored, and wider digital promotion requires equally serious attention. Social media platforms, online sellers and influencers should not be allowed to become unaccountable channels for portraying nicotine use as fashionable or harmless.
Parents, teachers and young people also have a role to play. Families and schools need to help young people recognise these products, understand their risks and seek support when needed. Young people should also learn to question nicotine marketing online. However, responsibility cannot rest with families alone; regulators, social media platforms, retailers and the entertainment industry must be held accountable.
Progress should be measured by effective enforcement, reduced access for minors, early identification of emerging products, and better-informed young people, not simply by the number of policies adopted.
Nigeria has an opportunity to act before nicotine dependence becomes entrenched in another generation. A new product should not have to become a youth problem before it becomes a regulatory priority. The packaging may be new and the marketing more sophisticated, but the need for prevention remains unchanged. Clear laws, robust enforcement, better data and honest conversations with young people can help ensure that innovation does not come at the cost of their health.
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