Greensboro's African American Community Newspaper since 1967
For two years, Austin Collins consumed roughly 14 mg of nicotine a day — the equivalent of nine to 14 cigarettes — while vaping. Now, he consumes more than double the amount of nicotine, the equivalent of at least two packs of cigarettes, using nicotine pouches.
They’re one of the latest ways that people are getting their nicotine fix.
Some nights, Collins, who lives in Charlotte, said he falls asleep with a pouch in his mouth.
“It’s really been a blessing that they’re there,” said Collins, who began using nicotine pouches about a year ago to quit vaping after he noticed it was affecting his breathing. “I’m only 25, and it’s hard for me to run a mile.”
Oral nicotine pouches are tobacco-free pouches similar in size to a piece of gum. They’re generally tucked behind a user’s upper or lower lip, and they contain nicotine salts and flavors such as mint or citrus. Though the pouches are small and discreet, research shows they are able to deliver more nicotine than a cigarette.
They’ve exploded in popularity in the past few years, and one brand in particular has led the charge: Zyn.
Online influencers, called “Zynfluencers,” have ignited a subculture with posts promoting the pouches that rack up millions of views on social media. Some use “Zynonyms,” which play on common words or phrases to include the brand name, like “George WashingZyn” and “Lord forgive me, for I have Zynned.”
As Zyn becomes more in vogue, there have been growing pains, too. Zyn’s parent company, Philip Morris International, in June paused online sales in response to a subpoena questioning its compliance with a ban on flavored tobacco in the District of Columbia. That led to a supply shortage, which some lamented as “the Great Zynpression.”
Even so, the company announced July 23 that it expects to ship at least 560 million tins of the pouches in 2024, nearly 50 percent higher than the previous year. A can of 15 Zyn pouches is sold for about $5.
Though nicotine pouch sales shot up 641 percent between 2019 to 2022, few U.S. adults use them, a new study shows. In a nationally representative sample of about 39,000 adults, researchers found just 2.9 percent had used nicotine pouches. Some experts fear that teens are responsible for the spike in sales.
‘Pouch packed with problems’
A call for a regulatory crackdown on Zyn from U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) put the product at the center of a political culture war earlier this year. Schumer called it a “pouch packed with problems,” saying the products seemed to “lock their sights on young kids, teenagers and even younger.”
North Carolina’s Republican Sen. Thom Tillis and Rep. Richard Hudson (N.C.-9) both fired back on X, formerly known as Twitter, touting Zyn cans.
“Come and take it, Chuck,” Tillis wrote. Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene responded with a call for a “Zynsurrection.”
“They took your freedom once,” read an image one user posted to X, the words imposed over a photo of flavored Juul pods, which the federal Food and Drug Administration banned in 2022. Below that, over a photo of Zyn cans, the text read, “Don’t let them take it again.”
Experts are also comparing Zyn to Juul. They’re worried that the easy-to-conceal oral nicotine pouches that boast a variety of flavors have the same characteristics that lured teens to e-cigarettes.
“This is an attraction to youngsters so they can start as a gateway of using oral to e-cigarette to smoking,” said Irfan Rahman, dean’s professor of environmental medicine, pulmonary medicine and public health sciences at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
Cap
Photo credit: Aphis Marta,
CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
