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

It began when Chuck Schumer, the Democratic senator, issued a call for Zyn to be regulated.

The nicotine-flavored pouches had become something of a favorite among rightwing influencers and pundits, and backers including Tucker Carlson and others have variously claimed that Zyn can increase testosterone and turn a user into an “unstoppable force”.

But as well as carrying those purported benefits – and there is particularly little evidence for the “unstoppable force” claim – Zyn pouches are becoming a danger to children, Schumer warned.

“It’s a pouch packed with problems – high levels of nicotine. So today, I’m delivering a warning to parents, because these nicotine pouches seem to lock their sights on young kids – teenagers, and even lower – and then use the social media to hook ‘em,” Schumer said.

Schumer’s warning was about the risk of young people becoming hooked on Zyn, whose manufacturer says is actually an effective tool in stopping people from smoking cigarettes, and denies that it is aimed at children.

But what was actually a fairly tepid railing against Zyn from Schumer – he has asked the Food and Drug Administration to investigate the product’s health effects and marketing – became, as things are wont to do, a rallying cry on the right, as politicians and influencer types rallied to Zyn’s defence.

Carlson is among the rightwing influencers who have joined the chorus, with conservatives apparently seeing anything that could prevent easy access to Zyn, a sort of 2020s version of chewing tobacco, as something approaching a constitutional crisis.

“This calls for a Zynsurrection!” Marjorie Taylor Greene, the reactionary far-right Republican who has previously dabbled in causes including Jewish space lasers, claimed on X. Richard Hudson, a Republican congressman from North Carolina, posted a picture of himself in camouflage holding a Zyn packet with the text: “Come and take it!”

Others made a mental leap between the effort to regulate Zyn and the situation at the border, as support for Zyn became a sort of litmus test for demonstrating one’s conservatism.

The product in question was introduced in the US in 2014, but was little known until recent years, and experienced a real boom in 2023: CNN reported that 350m tubs of Zyn were sold in 2023, an increase of 62% on the previous year.

Zyn comes in a plastic package the size and shape of a tin of shoe polish, and contains 15 pouches inside. The pouches are available in doses of 3mg or 6mg, and release nicotine into the bloodstream through the gums, with one idea being that Zyn could be used instead of cigarettes.

Still, it isn’t just rightwing blowhards who have taken a liking to Zyn.

The product has become popular among Ge -Z, with “zynfluencers” extolling the virtues of Zyn on TikTok and elsewhere. Critics say the pouches could be harmful to children, given that nicotine things are not supposed to be stuck into the mouth for prolonged periods of time; Time reported on a 2024 study of nicotine pouch users which found almost all had reported some kind of unpleasant side effect – including mouth lesions, nausea, and a sore throat or mouth.

Chief among the people ignoring those concerns has been Carlson, who previously received the “world’s largest Zyn container” from some people called the “Nelk Boys”, who make prank videos.

He had earlier professed his love for Zyn on the Nelk Boys’ Full Send podcast. Nicotine, Carlson said, has “added a lot to [his] life”. He said he had discovered Zyn some years ago.

“A boy that one of my daughters was dating on new year 2020 was at my house, and he pulls this out [at this point Carlson produced a Zyn container].

“I’m like: ‘What is that?’

“‘He goes: it’s the future, it’s the future. It’s a non-tobacco nicotine delivery device.”

Since then, Carlson said, everything had changed.

“It’s been a massive life-enhancer. I’d really recommend it to you,” Carlson said.