UC San Francisco researchers say federal regulators have handed the tobacco industry a potent new marketing tool — one that could help the largest nicotine pouch maker lure a new generation of users.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared Philip Morris-owned Zyn on June 30 to claim that using Zyn instead of cigarettes could put consumers at “lower risk of mouth cancer, heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis.”
Featured Expert
Pamela Ling, MD, MPH
Director of UCSF’s Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education
Although the percentage of Americans who use nicotine pouches remains small — in the low single digits — their popularity among youth and young adults nearly quadrupled between 2022 and 2025, according to a national study. An FDA analysis released in June found the popularity of pouches remained steady among youth as demand for other tobacco products has declined.
We spoke with Pamela Ling, MD, MPH, director of UCSF’s Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, an international leader in tobacco control policies and science. She explains what these relatively new products are, what the potential health risks are, and how the FDA decision could open the floodgates for other pouch manufacturers to make similar claims.
What are nicotine pouches?
They’re porous packets that resemble small tea bags. You place them between your lip and gum. They contain nicotine and a filler material, and the nicotine is absorbed through the tissues in your mouth into your bloodstream.
Products like this have existed for a long time. In Sweden, a form of smokeless tobacco called “snus” uses tobacco in pouches placed under the lip, and similar pouch tobacco products have been sold in the U.S. for years.
Nicotine pouches are the next generation: they don’t contain tobacco leaf at all, just nicotine in a cellulose-based filler, often with added flavors. In that sense, they’re to smokeless tobacco what e-cigarettes are to cigarettes. They deliver nicotine, but without the tobacco leaf.