Friday, February 9, 2024
Time to read: About 7 minutes. Contains 1,352 words.
I have always been fascinated by smoking. My mother will shudder to read this, but I have a clear memory of pretending to smoke a cigarette with a LEGO flagpole when I was very young. I was excited to smoke like the cool girls and stylish rebels on TV and in the magazines that I cut up to decorate my bedroom. The colorful cigarette packs lining the checkout stand. As I grew up and developed hands-on relationships with both weed and tobacco, foreign films, the joy of a gossipy smoke break at an office job, and the need for a pastime while people watching further cemented the positive associations with smoking in my mind. Who can blame young Lauren? That’s a heady mix.
These newfangled, clinical-looking, white nicotine pouches you put in your lip like chewing tobacco? Zero romance. Zero sensory, cinematic associations. But Zyn is in. Extremely in. The nicotine game has changed, and I’ve been voraciously consuming every think piece, explainer, and podcast about it to wrap my head around this trending intoxicant. And like any stimulant capturing the youth’s attention, there are numerous valuable takeaways for innovators in the cannabis industry.
First, we’ll outline this product and the moment nicotine is having with the most wellness-oriented generation yet. Then, what weed can glean from this oral fixation à la mode, and the bigger question in all of this in regards to dealing with addictive substances.
Welcome to Zynbabwe
This shit is wild. Available in flavors like Cool Mint, Wintergreen, Coffee, and Citrus and concentrations of 3 mg or 6 mg of synthetic, lab-grown nicotine, a tin of Zyn cost around $4 to $5 for a container of 15 pouches at most convenience stores. It’s worth noting that on average, a person only absorbs 1–1.5 mg of nicotine from a single cigarette. Cheaper and stronger than cigarettes.
It is technically an NRT—nicotine replacement therapy, an FDA-approved product that helps you quit smoking by helping you gradually wean yourself off of nicotine. It worked for my dad, who is now a Zynner instead of a dipper. I think of Nicorette gum as the classic smoking cessation tool, but this new generation is bringing the branding on a whole new level. Blip, Lucy—it’s cool to see products out there to help people quit smoking/vaping tobacco, but the most important thing about these products is that if they do their job, you’ll stop using them.
That has not been the pattern for Zyn.
The popularity of this nicotine pouch really came into clarity for me, not after Chuck Schumer’s big speech to the FTC and FDA about protecting our children from Zynfluencers, but after reading this passage from Casey Lewis in her After School newsletter, reporting from a road trip that brought her through the University of South Carolina campus:
“We did go to a little wine bar, where we sat next to a Gen Zer who was reading this while sipping on biodynamic white wine and — here’s why I’m telling you all of this — popping Zyn after Zyn. I looked closer; her tiny on-trend crossbody bag was full of Zyn pouches.”
This New York Times Opinion story captures the Zyn phenomenon from a parent’s concerned perspective, pointing out the pipeline of social media influencers introducing underage children to a product that contains addictive levels of nicotine (as well as the equally disturbing reality that Phillip Morris International Inc. bought Zyn in 2022—hook ‘em young!). PMI sold 105.4 million tins of Zyn in the US in the third quarter of 2023. According to a report from TD Cowen, in the first weeks of 2024, Zyn sales were up 87%. On paper, Zyn is very clear about being for adults who wish to quit smoking and/or vaping tobacco. It won’t let you enter its website without saying so (and without registering your email—insanely direct email marketing play).
Schumer’s call-out brought broader awareness, coverage, and paranoia around the topic. A Bloomberg follow-up revealed that in addition to helping college students relax and high schoolers study for finals, Zyn pouches are replacing Adderall as high-performance fuel for young professionals. Certain far-right pundits have since been activated in response to the calls for federal oversight.
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