All concerning the Zyn-sation of nicotine pouches : NPR

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

There is a new nicotine craze that has some mother and father and well being officers involved. It is known as Zyn. That is the title of a preferred model of flavored nicotine pouches. They’re fully tobacco free, and followers cannot get sufficient. However critics level to potential dangers of the favored product. NPR’s Lola Murti studies.

LOLA MURTI, BYLINE: A number of issues to learn about Zyn. First, it is spelled Z-Y-N. It is from a former Swedish firm that Philip Morris purchased two years in the past, and its plastic packaging is replete with vibrant, recent labels.

(SOUNDBITE OF CONTAINER LID FLIPPING OPEN)

MURTI: Flip open the puck-shaped container. It resembles Ice Breakers mints – inside, 15 little pouches that give an intense burst of nicotine whenever you pack a lip.

JOSH HADDEN: It lasts, like, quarter-hour – the preliminary head rush.

MURTI: That is Josh Hadden, a senior at Texas A&M. He tells me he began utilizing Zyn a pair years in the past. It was a option to stop vaping, and he likes it.

HADDEN: You continue to really feel, like, a bit buzz which you could by no means get from vaping.

MURTI: The nicotine releases instantly into the bloodstream. And higher but, says Hadden, the pouch is discrete – no smoke, no spitting, no stigma.

HADDEN: Zyn is – like, you are able to do it throughout class, and you are able to do it strolling round. And it is so nice.

MURTI: And faculty college students are flocking to the pouches. A part of the attraction – buzz from Zynfluencers (ph) like Tucker Carlson, AKA Tucker Carlzyn (ph), who saturates social media and podcasts with messages of simply how cool this product is. After which there are the flavors – 10 in all, from citrus to cinnamon.

HADDEN: I just like the peppermint ones, and I just like the espresso ones. And when you put them collectively, you get, like, a bit peppermint espresso drink, which is all the time enjoyable.

MURTI: Enjoyable? Possibly. Nevertheless it seems it is a cheaper behavior than vaping. Nicotine pouches have been round for a decade, launched as an alternative choice to tobacco. In the present day, Zyn dominates the market. Again within the spring, there have been reported shortages of the product. And by summer time, it was worse, all a results of Philip Morris voluntarily stopping on-line Zyn gross sales within the U.S. Questions had been raised about minors getting the flavored pouches.

HADDEN: Now I can discover it once more. It is simply dearer. However I do not actually care.

MURTI: And to fulfill the rising demand, Philip Morris is constructing a brand new manufacturing facility. The corporate says gross sales are up. In simply the primary three months of the 12 months, it offered 132 million cans of Zyn. That is up 80% from final 12 months. However Zyn nonetheless has a bumpy street forward. Congress and the FDA have shared massive issues about its addictiveness and its attraction to minors. Twenty-one-year-old Josh Hadden, who began utilizing to stop vaping, admits he is one of many many customers who can not seem to stop Zyn.

Do you’re feeling hooked on Zyn now?

HADDEN: Sure, 100%. I’ve a Zyn in proper now.

MURTI: Whereas habit is a really actual concern, Dr. Tory Spindle, a behavioral psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins Drugs, says it is a greater various to smoking and vaping.

TORY SPINDLE: I do not suppose I might help an outright ban on them, however I do suppose that we must be extra cautious with how they’re marketed.

MURTI: Philip Morris utilized for the proper to market Zyn again in 2020. That software – it is nonetheless pending with the FDA. So for now, Zyn continues to be offered within the U.S.

Lola Murti, NPR Information.

(SOUNDBITE OF KENDRICK LAMAR SONG, “B****, DON’T KILL MY VIBE”)

Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Go to our web site phrases of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for additional info.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This textual content might not be in its ultimate kind and could also be up to date or revised sooner or later. Accuracy and availability might fluctuate. The authoritative file of NPR’s programming is the audio file.