Zyn Pouches Are Safer Than Cigarettes. Why Are Some Politicians Targeting Them?

Zyns are super popular.

They are little pouches people tuck into their lip to get a hit of nicotine.

Zyn has competitors, like Velo and On!, but Zyn has most of the market.

Young people love the pouches.

They are safer than cigarettes.

Their nicotine is addictive, but nicotine isn’t what makes tobacco deadly. “[The] mix of chemicals—not nicotine—cause the serious health effects,” says the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

That’s why the FDA supports nicotine pouches.

Still, some anti-tobacco activists oppose all nicotine use.

“It’s a pouch packed with problems!” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) tells cameras.

Some states ban certain flavors and impose high taxes. This makes pouches about as expensive as cigarettes. That’s dumb.

“It’s not the nicotine that kills you. It’s smoking,” says Guy Bentley, director of consumer freedom at Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this website, in my new video.

“You shouldn’t treat a nicotine pouch the way we treat cigarettes. The more expensive you make the safer product, the more the most dangerous product will be sold.”

After Minnesota imposed a 95 percent tax on vaping, smokers who would have quit didn’t. Thousands of them.

The ban-things crowd says they must protect children.

“These nicotine pouches seem to lock their sights on young kids,” claims Schumer.

New York politicians say high taxes will make it “harder for children to buy them.”

I liked one New Yorker’s reaction: “By the time somebody says it’s for the kids, they’re really just trying to tug on the heartstrings and make you stop thinking about it so much.”

Bentley points out, “Almost no kids use these products.”

Only about 0.6 percent of high schoolers, according to The National Youth Tobacco survey, use them frequently.

“This is an incredibly low proportion of youth.” says Bentley. “It is adults buying this stuff. Seven million American adults use nicotine pouches, and that’s growing, particularly among people who smoke. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing!”

Finally, bans and high taxes don’t make popular products disappear—they create black markets.

Black markets nourish crime.

Australia taxes cigarettes heavily.

“What do we see?” asks Bentley. “We don’t see smoking rates continue to fall. You see hundreds of arson attacks.”

Arson attacks? Yes, black market cigarette sellers firebomb competitors. Where taxes are very high, people make money outside the law.

“That is what government tax policy has done,” says Bentley.

“We haven’t had firebombings here,” I note.

“We haven’t, but we’ve seen what a disaster the war on drugs was. Why would we want to replicate that with nicotine?”

Good question. I took it to the activist groups pushing bans and high taxes.

None would agree to an interview.

It’s too bad. I still would like Truth Initiative to tell me about their plan for “the end of…nicotine use.”

“A nicotine-free society,” says Bentley, “is as ridiculous and insane as a gambling-free society, an alcohol-free society, a junk food–free society, a society free of life’s little pleasures that we all indulge in.”

“People want government to protect us,” I push back.

“They want government to protect other people from themselves, but when it’s something you’re consuming and government interferes, people start to complain. If you want to use nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, place a bet on a football game, or play poker…that should be up to you. This is part of the taste, texture, and color of life.”

He’s right. We should make those choices for ourselves.

When politicians limit our choices, they almost always make things worse.

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