Nicotine pouches are odorless, easy to hide, and increasingly promoted online — and doctors say that combination is changing how young people encounter nicotine.
CLEVELAND — Nicotine pouches sit between the lip and the gum and release nicotine directly into the body. Zyn, the best-known brand, now holds more than half of all nicotine pouch sales in the United States. Dr. Scott Hadland, Chief of Adolescent Medicine at Mass General Brigham Children’s Hospital, says the pouches contain pure nicotine salts and can deliver as much nicotine as a cigarette — sometimes more.
“These nicotine pouches contain pure nicotine salts, and so they deliver a pretty high concentration of nicotine, comparable to that in, say, a cigarette and sometimes more,” Hadland said.
Much of the pouches’ recent visibility traces back to social media, where creators dubbed “zynfluencers” post about using the products. Hadland says that kind of content can make pouches look appealing to young people who might otherwise never try them.
“A zynfluencer is somebody who uses nicotine pouches and shares that information online in a way that makes use of nicotine and use of these pouches really enticing, and might be drawing young people to use them more,” Hadland said.
The numbers back up the concern. According to the CDC Foundation’s TEEN+ study, nicotine pouch use among youth and young adults nearly quadrupled between 2022 and 2025, and nationwide nicotine pouch sales surged more than 250 percent between January 2023 and August 2025.
Nicotine pouches are legally off-limits to anyone under 21, but that hasn’t stopped younger users from getting them. Hadland says the earlier someone starts using nicotine, the higher their lifetime risk of addiction.
“We know that the younger a person is when they first start using any substance, whether it’s nicotine, cannabis, alcohol, they’re going to be at higher risk for having lifetime problems with addiction when they start at a young age,” Hadland said. “Nicotine pouches, being readily available, being easy to conceal, are something that I worry a lot about as an addiction doctor.”
The pouches’ discretion is part of what makes them hard for parents to catch. Hadland recommends starting the conversation early — asking kids directly whether they’ve been offered a pouch, and what they’d do if it happened.
“If a parent suspects that their teen is using nicotine pouches, remember that pediatricians like me are available and we have treatments available,” Hadland said.
The Food and Drug Administration recently cleared some Zyn products to carry a modified-risk marketing claim, allowing the company to tell adult smokers 21 and older that switching to Zyn may lower their risk of certain cancers and other smoking-related illnesses. That claim applies only to adult smokers — not to teens, for whom the products remain illegal to purchase.
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