110

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday cleared Philip Morris-owned Zyn nicotine pouches to be marketed as less harmful than cigarettes, giving the tobacco giant a major regulatory win as the Trump administration loosens restrictions on nicotine products.

The decision, first reported by Axios, allows 20 Zyn products to carry a modified-risk claim saying that switching from cigarettes to Zyn lowers the risk of mouth cancer, heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

Zyn pouches contain nicotine but not tobacco. They are placed between a user’s gum and lip and have surged in popularity among conservatives, tech workers and others who promote them as a cleaner alternative to cigarettes and chewing tobacco or a productivity aid.

top 22 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] eldoom@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 hours ago

I mean it really is safer than smoking. I use a different brand than zyn and from experience I can say it's not really that bad for you, long as you switch up where you keep it in your mouth and stay away from fruity and citrus flavors... They tend to put citric acid in them and it seriously fucks your teeth.

[-] homik@slrpnk.net 4 points 9 hours ago

Just about anything is going to be safer than hot oily particle smoke in your mouth, throat and lungs. You could hardly make the bar lower for that statement.

[-] terranoid@lemmy.cafe 49 points 1 day ago

...I mean, are they wrong?

[-] phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 19 points 23 hours ago

Nicotine itself causes issues. It might be less alone than with the other components of tobacco but saying it's safer than cigarettes is a stretch from current data imo.

Anecdotally a person I know is attempting to wean off and each decrease in number of zins has measurably improved their heart rate and sleep.

[-] terranoid@lemmy.cafe 9 points 17 hours ago

I don't see why you consider it a stretch to say nicotine alone is less harmful than tobacco products containing nicotine, which literally risk cancer by just chewing the leaf without additives.

Even the FDA is now saying it's less harmful, that's what this whole thing is about

https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/ctp-newsroom/fda-authorizes-20-zyn-nicotine-pouches-be-marketed-specific-modified-risk-claim

may now be marketed with the following risk modification claim: “Using ZYN instead of cigarettes puts you at a lower risk of mouth cancer, heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis.”

[-] phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 hours ago

It sounds like the same claims as filtered cigarettes had with the same degree of proof. The current FDA has been largely regulatory captured imo.

Zyns also tend to be flavored, flavorings which are highly unregulated and untested.

[-] terranoid@lemmy.cafe 3 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

If you're going to mention Zyn flavorings, you're grasping at straws. They're using food grade flavorings. Might as well say chewing gum is dangerous and under regulated at that point.

There is literally no reason for them to scare people with weird flavorings that could be dangerous. They already have a well used addictive product. Nicotine and food grade flavors is plenty to make something that people get addicted to and use.

It's simply a less dangerous product than tobacco. That doesn't make it safe but ffs it's nicotine plus food grade products. It's practically the same as using nicorette gum, just not for the goal of quitting.

[-] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 hours ago

Saying "a tobacco-free pouch that you suck on is safer than a cigarette" sounds the same as saying "a filtered cigarette is safer than an unfiltered cigarette?" I don't understand how you can make that claim. The big danger from smoking is the smoke itself with all the chemical reactions occurring when you burn plant matter and inhale it.

These products (nor vapes) don't share a single similarity to cigarettes apart from them containing nicotine, and if that's the metric we're using, we can also say tomatoes are just as deadly since they too contain nicotine.

[-] phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 1 points 28 minutes ago

If it were the burning then dip/chew wouldn't be a cause for mouth and throat cancer. The 1.5-6 mgs in a zyn vs the 1mg/100kg of tomato is a very different dosage. Nicotine alone can be cytotoxic and promote EMT both factors that can indicate cancer risk.

Flavoring problems arent really a reach considering some have induced severe and deadly responses in people who vape.

[-] TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 12 points 21 hours ago

saying it's safer than cigarettes is a stretch from current data imo.

Depends on how you phrase it. I would be willing to bet it's safe in regards to carcinogens, most of which in cigarettes are byproducts of additives and from combustion. It's probably safer than dipping in that respect as well.

Nicotine is bad for your cardiovascular system, but it's not classified as a carcinogen by itself.

[-] Jiggle_Physics@quokk.au 9 points 20 hours ago

The evidence shows that nicotine promotes the development of numerous forms of cancer. Also a lot of the data on this is out dated as it comes from studies done years ago on user groups that were using products that are now significantly more potent. There is also evidence of issues with the liver, and numerous other deleterious effects on the organs that have a growing body of data showing stronger, and stronger, correlations with nicotine use.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4553893/

[-] TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 5 points 12 hours ago

At present, it is not possible to draw a conclusion whether nicotine itself may act as a complete carcinogen.

That study is proposing that nicotine may modify the effect of cancer growth but did not conclude that nicotine itself is a carcinogen.

[-] Jiggle_Physics@quokk.au 0 points 34 minutes ago

And that is exactly what I said, that evidence shows nicotine promotes development of caner.

This also is ignoring the deleterious effects on the organs that aren't cancer based.

[-] terranoid@lemmy.cafe 11 points 17 hours ago

https://atm.amegroups.org/article/view/119609/html

2023 review found most animal tumor-initiation studies did not show nicotine increasing spontaneous tumor initiation, while tumor-progression results were inconsistent and hard to generalize

Smokeless tobacco is not "safe", it's addictive, may have oral/cardiovascular concerns, and long term data is limited, but cancer risk is likely far lower than chewing tobacco. Nicotine alone os not strongly established as cancer causing in humans, but biologically suspicious enough that "harmless" would be too strong.

There's a reason the FDA is allowing Zyn to say there's a difference now with "Using ZYN instead of cigarettes puts you at a lower risk of mouth cancer, heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis". People would do better to switch to Zyn than smoke or use dip. They'd do even better quitting, but people should understand there's much higher risk with smoking and using chewing tobacco.

[-] Malyca@lemmy.zip 5 points 22 hours ago

I think mouth cancer risk is increased even

[-] LodeMike@lemmy.today 4 points 22 hours ago

Does nicotine itself cause cancer??

[-] eldoom@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 hours ago

No it doesn't

[-] AmbitiousProcess@piefed.social 28 points 22 hours ago

I mean... it's true?

I can see the argument that people might look at that and for some reason, given how fundamentally stupid many Americans seem to be, assume it means that in general it reduces your risk of all those conditions even if you didn't smoke prior... but I doubt that will actually be a meaningfully large occurrence.

[-] Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world 10 points 23 hours ago

I thought that was obvious?...

[-] Chozo@fedia.io 9 points 23 hours ago

have surged in popularity among conservatives

Why? Is smoking woke now?

[-] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 12 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

God I wish more of them would. All my conservative friends dip. That shit is nasty. Like not just the flavor and the habit itself but the damn spit cup and them thinking they're being discrete pushing it down a clear straw into a silver bullet.

I smoked as a young adult. And then vapes. And now pouches (which I order online because my state bans flavors and charges twice as much).

I wouldn't recommend nicotine to anybody, but IMO pouches are by far the best delivery mechanism.

[-] MolochHorridus@piefed.social 1 points 19 hours ago

Sucking on things in general is considered gay by many it seems.

this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2026
110 points (100.0% liked)

News

38179 readers
1563 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.


Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.


7. No duplicate posts.


If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.


All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS