Johns Hopkins behavioral pharmacologist Tory Spindle weighs in on the safety of smoke-free, flavored nicotine pouches, including the brand Zyn, that are popular among young people and are going viral on TikTok.
Senator Chuck Schumer recently described the trending nicotine product Zyn as a “pouch packed with problems” while delivering a warning to parents and calling for a federal investigation into the brand’s marketing tactics and health effects.
You may not have heard of Zyn or its peers—brands like On!, VELO, and Rogue—but sales of these smoke-free, often tobacco-free nicotine pouches increased from 126 million units between August and December 2019 to more than 808 million between January and March 2022.
In 2022, tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris International bet big on Zyn, acquiring its parent company Swedish Match as part of its push into smokeless products. Zyn and other oral nicotine products are expected to bring $2 billion in US revenue this year. And on social media sites like TikTok, the product is popular among so-called “zynfluencers” who document their use daily, tucking a pouch discreetly into their upper lip before school, work, or gym sessions, in the middle of sports games, while playing video games, and conducting taste-tests with friends.
Sold in 3 mg and 6 mg doses, the pouches deliver nicotine directly into the bloodstream through the mouth’s membrane lining, rather than through the lungs. In many ways, the pouches are safer than other nicotine products on the market because they do not use tobacco leaves and therefore have fewer carcinogens.
But they are not risk-free: They can be addictive and cause cardiovascular issues, gum damage, and nausea. Experts also express concern about how easy they are to conceal and the variety of flavors offered—peppermint, coffee, and citrus, to name a few—that make them appealing to kids.
These brands “really highlight flavors, and all of the pouches have catchy one syllable names. It almost seems like they’re trying to make them come off more like a gum rather than an actual nicotine product,” says Spindle, an associate professor in the psychiatry and behavioral sciences department at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
“Something that concerns us are claims about the product being discreet,” adds Meghan Moran, an associate professor in the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who is working with Spindle to research nicotine pouches. “We are worried that this could be appealing to young people—and we are currently conducting a study to find out if this is the case.”
Here, Spindle explains more about this emerging form of nicotine:
Source: Johns Hopkins University