Zyn: A Stepping Stone for Predatory Marketing in the Tobacco Industry

As you’re walking down the street after enduring a long and stressful day of school, you take in the crisp refreshing air of the afternoon until a puff of smoke suddenly appears in front of you from a cigarette. You decide to hold your breath until you are out of the smoke, knowing that the carcinogenic smoke can contribute to lung and heart diseases.

Many people know about the health risks smoking causes, with lung cancer and heart disease being the most known ones. With smoking slowly disappearing from the consumer market, tobacco companies have often opted for alternatives such as e-vapes and oral tobacco products, advertising them to be far safer than traditional cigarettes. Although these products have been shown to be safer alternatives to cigarettes, oral nicotine can just as easily trigger addictions. This is the case with Zyn, an oral nicotine product that has been on the rise through its dangerous promotion on social media and deceptive marketing strategies.

Tobacco is the common name for the plant Nicotiana Tobacum, indigenous to North and South America, with its leaves being the most valuable part of the plant. The leaves are cured in heated environments in order to remove their moisture and unpleasant flavor. Curing these leaves and subsequent aging leads to the degradation of carotenoids, organic pigments in the plant that assist in photosynthesis, giving the leaves the desired aroma and flavor. After the leaves are cured, they are graded in quality by the tobacco farmer based on their shape, color, and ripeness before being shipped off to a factory for further processing. Although the curing of tobacco is vital for its usage in cigarettes and other products, this process also creates harmful chemicals such as tobacco-specific nitrosamine, which is largely responsible for causing lung cancer in tobacco. 

The main ingredient in tobacco that gives it its addictive properties is nicotine, a stimulant which speeds up messages traveling between the brain and the body. Nicotine hijacks your brain’s reward system by attaching itself to dopamine receptors on neurons, which in turn releases dopamine, the neurotransmitter that makes you feel good, in the brain and then spreads through the bloodstream. This causes the brain to crave more nicotine and create more dopamine receptors on neurons due to the elevated amounts of dopamine being released, which can cause a vicious addiction to nicotine. Nicotine also increases the body’s heart rate and the amount of oxygen the body uses, narrowing the blood vessels in the process.  

Although nicotine is relatively harmless in low doses, its addictive nature makes smoking excruciatingly hard to quit, which exposes users to the harmful chemicals in tobacco such as tar, carbon monoxide, and other carcinogenic materials. When these toxic chemicals enter the lungs, the alveoli, the part of the lungs that facilitates gas exchange, along with the surrounding tissue become damaged; this leads to breathing problems and cardiovascular disease. These toxic chemicals eventually enter the bloodstream, where they can become deadly in conjunction with nicotine. Specifically, carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin, the molecule responsible for carrying oxygen in blood, reducing the amount of oxygen flowing through the bloodstream, while constant narrowing of the blood vessels by nicotine causes thinner and stiffer blood vessels. The body’s need for oxygen in these conditions will cause the heart to enlarge and pump faster, increasing blood pressure and the risk for heart disease. According to the American Heart Association, heart diseases caused by smoking kill over 440,000 people yearly, illustrating the severity of this problem. 

The tobacco industry has been capitalizing on the addictive nature of nicotine to draw in consumers for decades by utilizing deceptive marketing tactics and misinformation. Tobacco usage peaked during World War I and World War II, when cigarettes were rationed for soldiers to use during combat as psychological relief. This not only led to cigarettes being labeled as a “patriotic” product, but also ensured lifetime customers from addicted soldiers who came back from the war. In addition, many tobacco companies paid doctors and scientists to undermine thr health risks of smoking, easing the minds of consumers. By 1960, approximately 42% of Americans were smokers. However, the downfall of smoking would come on January 11, 1964, when the U.S. Surgeon General released a report linking smoking to lung cancer and heart disease in men and women. Afterwards, the government would soon issue restrictions on smoking advertisements as well as mandate that tobacco companies warn their consumers of these health risks, leading to annual declines in cigarette sales ever since. In 2021, it was reported that only 11% of Americans smoke, a 30% drop since 1960.

With the increasing negative stigma surrounding smoking, tobacco companies had to turn to producing seemingly less harmful tobacco products, such as e-vapes and nicotine gum. One of these products that has been rising in popularity are Zyn nicotine pouches. Zyn originated in Sweden and was created by Swedish Match, the country’s largest tobacco company. Zyn was created in order to appeal to consumers as a seemingly harmless nicotine product because Sweden, having one of the lowest smoking rates in the world, is infamous for persistent anti-smoking campaigns and strict regulations on tobacco advertising. After Swedish Match was bought out for $1.6 billion by Phillip Morris, the largest tobacco company in the world, it has been able to net annual sales of up to 580 million cans of nicotine pouches in 2024, with each can costing around $5.

Zyn has many advertised advantages over traditional tobacco products. The most appealing benefit is the lack of carcinogenic chemicals it contains compared to other tobacco products, thereby associating it with fewer health complications. Additionally, unlike cigarettes or e-vapes, Zyn’s oral nicotine pouches are far more discrete to use, being placed between the gums and lips of the user. This allows people to take these pouches in virtually any environment without bothering other people, which was another major issue with cigarettes and e-vapes. Zyn has also been shown to be able to boost cognitive function with half the amount of nicotine as cigarettes; cigarettes normally have around 10-12 mg of nicotine, whereas Zyn only has around 3-6 mg per pouch. With all of these advantages over tobacco, Zyn appears to be a promising alternative.

The benefits of Zyn seem appealing to consumers, but this appeal is what makes it extremely dangerous. Because Zyn doesn’t contain tobacco, it is also free from advertising restrictions placed on tobacco products, allowing its influence to spread rapidly. Tobacco companies are prohibited from advertising at all unless they have a warning on their product that details the dangers of tobacco, and even then advertising is prohibited in many forms, such as free sampling of tobacco products. This is extremely problematic, as even though nicotine does not contain any of the toxic chemicals in tobacco, it is what causes addiction in the first place. Zyn has been aggressively advertised through the offering of free product samples in online advertisements and in-person events, which aims to target not only smokers, but the younger population as well. Additionally, the rise in popularity of “Zynfluencers” on popular social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram promote Zyn through paid influencers, attracting younger audiences to give Zyn a try. In 2023, the National Youth Tobacco Survey reported that approximately 400,000 adolescents in the U.S. use nicotine pouches. The discreteness and perceived safety of Zyn in comparison to tobacco products seems to take precedence over the fact that nicotine can still increase risk of cardiovascular disease. With sales increasing annually, Zyn is turning into its own addiction.

Zyn’s rapid rate of growth is caused by the exact same predatory marketing patterns that tobacco companies have been using for decades to ensure lifelong customers through the addictive nature of nicotine, and it is being pushed on our generation today. The younger generation tends to be extremely impressionable due to our underdeveloped frontal cortexes, and are more likely to be swayed by the deceiving advertising of products like Zyn. From selling cigarettes to e-vapes to oral nicotine products, tobacco companies have always found a way to target the younger population in order to dominate the consumer market. Addiction to such products has undoubtedly ruined lives and families worldwide, and we need to take action to stop it. 

There are a couple of ways to stop the spread of Zyn’s influence. The most effective way is to spread awareness about the dangers of Zyn and their predatory marketing, either through online posts or in-person discussions. Another way is to understand the extent that we are able to be influenced by what’s around us. As the younger generation, we care a lot about what others think about us, which can make us susceptible to peer pressure and predatory marketing. Understanding how impressionable we are will allow us to make better decisions about what we want to do and what we should do as responsible people. It may seem like the tobacco industry will always have its hold on us, but we must never give up in the fight against it for future generations to come.