Nicotine pouches like Zyn, On! and Velo are becoming increasingly popular on social media. The pouches are made of microfiber and contain a powder made of nicotine, flavorings and other ingredients.
Sales of nicotine pouches — which go between the lip and gums and discreetly deliver up to the same amount of nicotine as three packs of cigarettes, depending on the pouch’s nicotine content — rose by 641% between 2019 and 2022. Yet, less than 3% of U.S. adults report ever using nicotine pouches, leaving health experts to wonder who is driving the rise.
A new study published in JAMA Network Open shows at least one group using them: U.S. soldiers.
Soldiers are 10 times more likely to use nicotine pouches than an average American adult, the study by Fort Liberty’s Department of Public Health, UNC’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the University of Virginia’s Cancer Center found. Of the 1,957 Fort Liberty soldiers surveyed, almost 24% reported using nicotine pouches in the last 30 days.
Most were white and male. Over half were between 17 and 24 years old.
“The rates of nicotine pouch use was surprising,” Melissa Little, the study’s first author and director of UVA’s Center for Nicotine and Tobacco Research, told CityView. “We expected it to be higher than the general population, but we were not expecting it to be that high.”
The rate of soldiers’ nicotine pouch use increased by 4.5% increase during the study period. In 2022, a little over 20% of the soldiers surveyed had used nicotine pouches. By 2023, it was almost a quarter.
Despite the soldier-only study population, Kathryn Polaskey, an epidemiologist with Fort Liberty’s Department of Public Health and the study’s project lead, said the results should raise the alarm for young adult nicotine pouch use.
“Yes, the military is a certain audience. Yes, it is a quote, unquote, a niche group,” Polaskey said. “But what I have learned through my years of working here is that an 18 to 24-year-old male is an 18 to 24-year-old male. The soldiers who work and live here are not very different from a kid who’s on a UNC campus.”
Polaskey said the soldiers surveyed are a snapshot of the country’s population and exemplify the rise in youth and young adult consumption of nicotine pouches. That rise has been noted by the American Lung Association, which states that over a quarter of individuals who currently use nicotine pouches are 18 to 20 years old — under the legal age to purchase them.
The Centers for Disease Control’s 2024 National Youth Tobacco Survey found that 480,000 middle and high school students used nicotine pouches. Two in 10 of them reported daily use.
Youth and young adult rates of nicotine pouch use is, in part, attributed to “zynfluencers,” or social media personalities who promote popular nicotine pouch brands like Zyn. Polaskey also said promotions like Zyn Rewards, which allows users to earn points for every tin they buy and redeem them for swag like a Carhartt beanie or a Stanley cup, are to blame.
“The fact that I could turn them in for a television or a YETI backpack, it’s crazy,” Polaskey said.
Zyn’s marketing was specifically called out by U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in 2024 for its targeting of youth, according to CBS. He urged the Federal Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the company.
There’s still a lot of research that needs to be done on nicotine pouch use and its long term impacts, Polaskey said. She said that data on the risks and negative effects of nicotine pouch use is needed to convince people to never start, let alone quit, using the product.
“We want to be doing preventative medicine, not trying to catch up and make people quit when the damage has already been done,” Polaskey said.
On Fort Liberty, Polaskey and her team at its Department of Public Health are continuing their research into soldiers’ nicotine pouch use. The same team of Fort Liberty public health nurses and UNC students who helped conduct the surveys for the published study are going back out and asking soldiers why they use nicotine pouches and what it would take for them to quit.
“Once we get a better idea of the root cause, then we can figure out the best ways to address it,” Polaskey said.
Little and her team at UVA developed a nicotine and tobacco intervention for military personnel and are working alongside the rest of the study’s research team to build it out further.
“I have no problem with a soldier deciding they want to use nicotine pouches after they have all the facts about them,” said Little. “But I worry that these brave young men and women are choosing to use a product without knowing the full story.”
CityView Reporter Morgan Casey is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Morgan’s reporting focuses on health care issues in and around Cumberland County and can be supported through the CityView News Fund.