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Chapter 1: What are ZYNs and how do they differ from traditional tobacco products?
Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co-host, writer and researcher and microphone breather, Nick Pell. On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Such as...
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Today on the show, if you haven't been living under a rock, you've seen people sticking little packets of nicotine into their mouths. They go by different brand names, but the most common one is Zin. Like Band-Aid and Kleenex, Zin has basically just become the name for a little packet of nicotine that you put under your lip.
Chapter 2: What is the harm-reduction argument for using ZYNs?
Unless otherwise specified in this episode, by the way, when we say Zin, we just mean nicotine pouch. But people generally fall on either side of one extreme about Zin's.
Either these little flavored packets are just kicking your addiction from one side of the street to another and seducing kids with fruit and mint flavors, or they're the second coming of Jesus and the best thing you can put into your mouth, chock full of vitamins and minerals and necessary for a successful and fulfilling life.
So what's the real story behind these addictive little packages that seem to have popped up absolutely everywhere over the last few years, from Silicon Valley startups to Sunbelt construction sites? Here today to help me tackle this topic in the nick of time is writer and researcher Nick Pell. As anyone who has listened to any of Nick's episodes knows, he is a man, well, you love nicotine, right?
I do, and I think that it's worth discussing the health benefits of nicotine.
Okay, so Nick thinks that smoking is good for you.
I don't. I do, however, think that we lost something important socially speaking when everyone quits smoking a really small example is the loss of one-on-one mentorship time with your boss and people can laugh but it's a real thing i learned some of the most important professional lessons of my life ripping heaters with the boss so you know you can say the health benefits outweigh this
I'm going to say the health benefits outweigh this.
And you know what? That's a totally legitimate belief to have, but we should be honest about what we lost when health nuts decided that people couldn't smoke anywhere. I mean, bars, are you kidding me?
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Chapter 3: Who is the typical user of ZYNs and what demographics are involved?
Like bars are dedicated to adults behaving badly and the effects of secondhand smoke are wildly overblown. OK, well, the CDC disagrees. There are tons of studies that disagree with the CDC. OK, yeah. Maybe a topic for another time. I'm down when you're down. People honestly like the bar smoking ban is people just don't want their clothes to smell bad.
I'm completely unconvinced that people actually care about the health effects of secondhand smoke.
Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of at I don't want the boogers that have weird colors and I don't want to have to wash my hair again before and clothes before bed and the next day. Yeah. Anyway, this message was brought to you by RJR Nabisco, makers of Marlboro.
I haven't smoked in going on 15 years. I used to, I would like grab a pack when I was traveling, but I lost the taste for it by 40. I switched to super strong menthol flavored vapes, which is frankly, I enjoyed them more than cigarettes. And that's coming as a former two pack a day unfiltered Campbell smoker.
Chapter 4: What cognitive benefits does nicotine provide according to studies?
Yikes. Yeah, you were really hardcore if memory serves. I remember hanging out in your old apartment. Speaking of having to wash your hair and clothes.
Yeah, I was a smoking in my apartment with the windows closed kind of guy. And, you know, camel unfiltered. If it's good enough to kill grandpa, it was good enough to kill me. Yeah, but you don't even vape anymore now. You're just a Zen guy. I like Rogues and Sesh. Actually, I'm kind of a Sesh guy now. They're just other brands. You know, call me Joe the way I be Rogan.
Right. Moving on, who is actually using Zins?
Chapter 5: How does switching from cigarettes to ZYNs impact health?
What do we know about the typical Zin user?
Men are 88% of the market share, according to a report from Nikko Kick. Thus far, no one has made the Virginia Slims of Zins.
Yeah, those are the skinny cigarettes that old ladies and, well, gay dudes smoke. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
No, whatever. To the degree that Zins are marketed, they're heavily marketed and culturally adopted through masculine-coded channels like sports, fitness, finance, grit, culture. I do know a lot of gym bros, well, such as yourself, are hitting the Zins pretty hard. Yeah, man.
Wintergreen, Zinn, first thing in the morning with a white monster, and you're hitting the iron, it's a little piece of heaven on earth. That's got to taste like day three of a Vegas bender.
What about age? Because I definitely get the sense that middle-aged dudes are not the core demographic for Zinn, but now I actually have no idea.
I think day three of a Vegas bender probably tastes like baby aspirin, if you know what I'm saying.
I do know what you're saying.
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Chapter 6: What are the potential health risks associated with ZYN use?
Oh, man. All right.
Daddy chill.
The 19 to 30 age bracket is the fastest growing demographic in 2024 to 2025. Past year use, which is, you know, used it in the past year within that age cohort doubled. And that's nearly 10% of young adults reporting use according to the University of Michigan. Go blue. Obligatory. Amazing blue. Hey, congratulations on beating UConn.
I wish I cared about that stuff because people get so hyped up about it, but I can't even muster the energy to pretend.
But thank you. I'm a UMass alum, so if UMass isn't going to win, I just want UConn to lose. Among 12th graders, use of zins surged from 3% in 2023 to 5.4% in 2024, often as a discrete alternative to vaping, which is harder to hide in classrooms.
Oh, yeah, that's definitely sketch.
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Chapter 7: How does the marketing of ZYNs compare to traditional tobacco products?
I remember teachers telling us not to drink coffee in school because we were too young and it might stunt our growth or something like that.
Possibly worth noting, I was always the tallest kid in my class until I started drinking coffee. So, you know, maybe the teachers were wrong.
Well, that anecdotal evidence is all we need for Skeptical Sunday.
Seriously, dude, I was like, I've been this tall since I was 13. And then it just froze. Womp womp. Yeah, exactly. Oh, man. And my father's like six and a half feet tall. A lot of 12th graders are 18, but I guess you have to be 21 to use nicotine legally now, which is weird.
I see.
I would have killed for little packets of nicotine. in middle school. Honestly, yes.
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Chapter 8: What is the future outlook for ZYNs in the context of nicotine addiction?
Middle school. Yes, I absolutely would have killed for these in middle school. Adoption among those 45 and older is significantly lower. It's usually below 2%. Wow. And that suggests older smokers are either sticking to cigarettes or haven't been reached by the digital marketing that often drives the pouch sales. It could also just mean they've given up nicotine entirely, though, right? Right.
I know tons of guys who used to smoke but don't smoke anymore. Anecdotally, tons of older dudes at the gym are zinning. For what it's worth, about 35% of pouch users are former smokers. What about by race? It's overwhelmingly a white thing. 75% to 80% of the market is white, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. and the Centers for Disease Control.
And it has a certain amount of currency in high-income, high-education circles like tech, law, finance, where smoking is socially radioactive. Ah, yeah. Chewing, that's a rural thing, but zins are urban and suburban, overwhelmingly.
Chewing is chewing tobacco. Okay, well, maybe we'll get into that. But where did these things come from? Because I feel like they were just nowhere, and then suddenly they were just absolutely everywhere.
So to understand zin, you have to understand snooze. And Sweden has used snooze, which is a moist, pasteurized tobacco powder tucked under the lip. They've been using that since the 18th century. Now, because snooze is steam cured rather than fire cured, like American dip or chew, it has much lower levels of carcinogens.
I've seen these around and I kind of just assumed they were the same thing. Actually, I tried the Swedish version because my buddy Johan, there was another Swedish guy and Johan, when we were exchange students. And we would go on these retreats or whatever, and we'd be drinking. And I remember they would get kind of wasted and put these things in.
And oh, my God, dude, I've never been so sick in my life. So first of all, you're putting in this like whiskey flavored pouch of tobacco, but you're wasted and you've never had the multiplier effect before of having tobacco because I wasn't a smoker or anything. Right. So I'm just like drinking at age 17 or whatever in Germany. And we put these things in at, I don't know, 9 p.m.
after drinking since like 5 or 6. And I did something like chewed it and it opened and I was like swallowing all these little bits of it. And I was just absolutely so sick, like head pounding, room spinning sick. And I assume all Scandies have done that before at least once by mistake, but they were probably 12 when they started you. Yeah. So like whatever. And they were not affected by it.
But I remember them trying to get me up to go to a bar and I was like, I'm done. And they were like, dude, it's 830. And I was like, I can't move. I'm totally wrecked. Like no thing. And I woke up the next day just disgust. Like I'd been hit by just many multiple garbage trucks. It was just terrible. I don't know where I'm going with this story, but basically, yes, I've experienced that.
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