Noel King

So in the first half of the show, we talked about how Gen Z likes smoking, or at least Gen Z likes posing with cigarettes.

You have been reporting on how nicotine is in fashion with right-wing wellness influencers.

What's going on?

Yeah, and it's not just right-wing, although it certainly includes right-wing wellness influencers, but health and wellness influencers broadly are getting interested in nicotine as a way to boost energy or focus or help them with work or their workouts.

So that's a really interesting development that we are seeing.

Okay, so here I knee-jerk want to say that can't possibly be healthy.

It can't possibly be healthy, but you're going to tell me I'm getting something wrong.

To be clear, nicotine is highly addictive.

However, it is not what causes cancer.

In cigarettes, what causes cancer is the fact that it's combustible, you're lighting it up, you're inhaling it into your lungs, and you're in the process ingesting 70 different carcinogens.

So what the wellness influencers are using are things like nicotine pouches and patches.

These may have their own health risks, but they're not the same as cigarettes.

So a couple of the really prominent people in there are people like podcaster Joe Rogan.

The Stanford neuroscientist and podcaster Andrew Huberman.

And then the biohacker Dave Asprey, who is the guy behind Bulletproof Coffee.

And what are they using it for exactly?

So it varies a bit depending on who we're talking about.

But a lot of them like to dabble with it as a way they say that it really helps give them a boost when it comes to their focus and their energy levels.

And that makes sense because nicotine does flood your brain with dopamine when you take a hit of it.

So that's what they're feeling.