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Meet the Zynfluencers: how nicotine pouches ignited a new culture war

To anyone unschooled in the fratty, bro-y, vocal jazz of modern nicotine fandom, Zyn is basically a modern-day snuff, albeit sucked rather than snorted. It’s a brand of smokeless nicotine pouches produced by a Stockholm-based tobacco manufacturer, which was sold to the American multinational Philip Morris International (PMI) for $16bn in 2022. Zyn is sold in circular tins, containing 15-20 pouches, each of which contains anywhere from 1.5mg to 9mg of nicotine. (By comparison, the average cigarette contains anywhere between 8mg and 20mg of nicotine, of which only 1-2mg is actually absorbed through smoking.) “Lip cushies” and “couch cushions”, meanwhile, are slang for the pouches themselves,…

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Articles of Interest

Can Nicotine Pouches Like Zyn Harm Your Health?

What we know about the new products, addiction and cancer.

For young users, tobacco packets like Zyn are a nicotine trend that just won’t quit

Tiny packets of nicotine have quickly become a big problem for parents and schools. They’re available at gas stations and convenience stores under names like Zyn, O! Rogue, Juice Head and VELO. Although the products are supposed to be sold only to people over 21, a growing number of children have reported using these types of smokeless oral nicotine packets.

How ZYN's Social Media Strategy is Driving Teen Nicotine Addiction

ZYN, named to sound like Zen, is being pushed as a harm-reduction alternative to cigarettes. Yet, in reality, they are another product being marketed to adolescents with deceptive tactics to get them hooked on Big Tobacco products

Nicotine pouches are growing in popularity. Are they safe?

Smoke-free, flavored nicotine pouches, including the brand Zyn, are popular among young people and are going viral on TikTok. Johns Hopkins behavioral pharmacologist Tory Spindle weighs in on their safety.

Oral nicotine pouches deliver lower levels of toxic substances than smoking – but that doesn’t mean they’re safe

Oral nicotine pouches are preportioned pouches sold in various flavors and nicotine strengths. They are similar in appearance and use to traditional ‘snus’, a form of smokeless tobacco placed between the gum and lip, which is popular in Scandinavia. However, unlike snus, nicotine pouches do not contain tobacco leaf. As a result, they are often marketed as “tobacco-free.” One of the studies in our review found that the “tobacco-free” label is confusing to some and may lead people to think nicotine pouches do not contain nicotine.

Smokeless Tobacco and Kids

For years, tobacco companies have marketed smokeless tobacco products as a way to use tobacco in places or situations when smoking is not allowed or is not socially acceptable, and that practice continues today. Seeing the downward trend in smoking rates and the increasing popularity of smokeless tobacco products, tobacco companies have introduced new forms of smokeless tobacco products that have a number of characteristics that can attract new, young users.

What Chuck Schumer Doesn’t Understand About Zyn

Share Comment At a press conference last week, Sen. Chuck Schumer called on federal agencies to investigate and crack down on Zyn, an oral nicotine product that most Americans have never used and likely have never heard of. One might not have expected this seemingly niche topic to get much attention, but the issue lit up the very-online right.

What Parents Should Know About Nicotine Pouches

Just as the use of vaping (e-cigarette) devices among young people began to decline—eliciting a collective sigh of relief from public health officials—a new, potentially worrisome product is gaining popularity among youth: nicotine pouches.

What's Zyn, and why there was a shortage this summer

Zyn was originally intended to help existing nicotine users kick the habit. While the pouches don't contain cancer-causing tobacco, Zyn is quite addictive and it has raised alarm bells among regulators who worry that it is being marketed to underage users.

What’s That in Your Mouth, Bro?

Zyn nicotine pouches have become a new symbol of American masculinity — and a surprising political lightning rod.

Why Was Everybody Popping ZYNs This Year?

Like smoking, ZYN can at once feel countercultural and comically corporate. Philip Morris International bought Swedish Match, the creator of ZYN, for $16 billion in 2022, and nicotine pouches are a central component of the company’s plan for sales to be majority smokeless by 2025. Surely, their massive Big Tobacco distribution network has helped ZYN become such a thing, but the product’s seeming everywhereness in regular life is hardly due to their marketing department. I’ve seen cardboard signs in gas stations, but—thanks to regulations on advertising nicotine—that’s it. Instead, ZYN feels like the latest step in a trend that’s been going on for at least a decade, and almost entirely online.

Young Scandinavians Are Sticking Nicotine Pouches Up Their Asses

Young Danes are sticking nicotine pouches up their asses and inside their foreskins in a trend that’s left health experts concerned and baffled, according to Danish national broadcaster DR.

ZYN 101: What to Know About Big Tobacco’s Latest Addiction

With cigarette smoking on the decline as the result of successful public health efforts, the tobacco industry has been looking for new ways to hook young people. Though smokeless tobacco products have been on the market for years, new “smokeless and spitless” nicotine pouches are beginning to gain popularity because of social media promotion. Specifically, Zyn, which entered the market in 2014, has gained TikTok-fueled popularity and the public has begun to take notice.

Zyn Is the New Vaping

Not so long ago, Juul was seen as the new Marlboro. Smoking wasn’t that cool anymore—rates had plummeted among U.S. adults and teens—but then came Juul, a sleek, addictive product with flashy advertising tactics that took off like wildfire. It soon became clear that e-cigarettes were hooking teens who otherwise wouldn’t have gone near nicotine. Now, Juul is out and Zyn is in. It’s even more discreet than Juul, with no plumes of vapor. A user simply tucks a small pouch of nicotine, additives, and flavorings under their lip for up to an hour. Over that time, it releases a steady hit of nicotine—more than that in a cigarette, but delivered much more slowly. Like Juul, it contains no tobacco.

Zyn nicotine pouches are the latest US culture-war front – but are they any good?

Tucker Carlson is among those railing against attempts to investigate Zyn’s health effects. I thought I’d try it – never again.

Zyn pouches, ‘Zynfluencers’ and ‘the Zyndemic’

For about a decade, Zyn, a brand of nicotine pouch, was a niche product used by former smokers. But now it’s exploded in popularity and is hard to find on store shelves.