The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has made two big moves that have people talking about nicotine use in the United States. First, they want to lower the amount of nicotine in cigarettes. Second, they’ve allowed a new product called Zyn nicotine pouches to be sold as a “safer” option for people who already use nicotine. But these changes raise serious questions about how we handle nicotine addiction in our society.

The story starts with how companies have engineered nicotine products to be more and more addictive over the years. First, cigarette companies figured out how to make nicotine hit the brain faster and harder. Then came JUUL, using nicotine salts and special chemicals to make their vapor smooth and highly addictive. Now we’re seeing products like Zyn pouches that appear to be even more addictive than JUUL was.

What’s especially concerning is how quickly people are getting hooked on these newer products. While many cigarette smokers took time to build up to smoking a pack or more per day, we’re seeing pouch users reach high levels of use much faster. This might be because the nicotine is engineered to be more potent, or because unlike cigarettes, there’s no harsh smoke or carbon monoxide to make new users feel sick when they use too much.

Looking at how people use these products tells us even more about their dangers. Many people who switched from vaping to Zyn thinking it would help them quit have ended up stuck on Zyn instead, saying they’re having a harder time quitting pouches than they did quitting JUUL.

We see this pattern where people switch from vaping to pouches (or pouches to vaping) hoping to quit, but just end up trapped in a different form of nicotine addiction.

This brings us to the FDA’s recent decisions. They want to lower nicotine levels in cigarettes, thinking this will make them less addictive and easier to quit. But we know from experience that people who already smoke will most likely just smoke more cigarettes, inhale more deeply, or switch to other nicotine products to get the same effect.

Their approval of Zyn pouches as a “safer” alternative is equally problematic – while these products might cause less immediate harm than smoking, they’re still highly addictive and are clearly attracting young users despite being marketed to adults.

The truth about nicotine addiction that everyone needs to understand is this: once someone develops an addiction to nicotine, that addiction stays with them for life – even if they stop using nicotine products. It doesn’t matter which product is “more addictive” once you’re already addicted to nicotine.

Many people get caught in an endless cycle of switching between different products, thinking one might be easier to quit than another, but they’re just keeping their addiction going in a different form.

For people who have never used nicotine, the most important thing to understand is that today’s nicotine products can hook you faster than ever before. The tobacco and nicotine industries have gotten very good at making their products more addictive. They’ve learned how to modify nicotine chemically to make it smoother, more pleasant, and more quickly absorbed by your body.

Looking at all of this – the increasingly addictive products, the cycle of switching between different forms of nicotine, and the FDA’s focus on “safer” alternatives – it’s clear that current policies aren’t addressing the real problem.

The best path forward is clear: never start using nicotine in any form. For those already using nicotine, switching between different products won’t solve the addiction – it just keeps it going in a different form. The only way to break free and eliminate any future harms to yourself from any nicotine product is to make and stick to a personal commitment to never administer nicotine again from any source.

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Possibly America's most accomplished smoking cessation educator, Joel Spitzer devoted nearly 50 years (1971-2020) toward helping smokers quit and youth smoking prevention. In addition to conducting 690 single-session seminars and 350 six-session 13-day stop smoking clinics between 1972 and 2008, online, his more than 100 reinforcement articles, free quitting ebook ("Never Take Another Puff"), and more than 500 video lessons have helped educate millions of quitters since 2000.

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Conflicts Disclosure: WhyQuit is a self-funded abrupt nicotine cessation (cold turkey) education and support site that has declined donations since its 1999 founding, including not accepting any corporate, government, pharmaceutical industry, or tobacco industry funding.

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Related resources:

• A safer way to smoke?
• Supercharging nicotine’s addictive potential
• Juul instigated a “nicotine arms race”, researchers say
• Pouches are not addictive
• Should I take up smoking to get off of vaping?
• I am afraid I might get addicted to my nicotine replacement therapy
• Nicotine is nicotine is nicotine
• How should you define what constitutes a successful quit from nicotine? 
• Don’t let fear of withdrawal stop you from even trying to quit Zyn
• Practically speaking, how much nicotine will it take to “REALLY” threaten my quit
• The idea of just using Zyn every now and then after you have stopped
• Why Zyn is addicting new nicotine users faster and causing tolerance to develop faster than previous nicotine products. 
•  “What is more addicting, tobacco snus or Zyn (nic. pouches)?”
• Give yourself a chance to find your new normal when first quitting nicotine
• Why Zyn may be harder to quit than previous nicotine products
• Surge in ER visits among nicotine pouch users raises concerns
• Was I addicted to nicotine?

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