Four Pieces of Misinformation From a Popular X Thread about ZYN
Most misinformation about nicotine and harm reduction products comes from tobacco control
advocates and incentivised health groups. However, a large portion comes from ordinary citizens who believe they are helping people.
I recently read a thread on X that has been viewed by half a million people. It aims to expose ZYN’s hidden dangers, but it just muddles the waters thanks to half-truths, poor research, and faulty conclusions.
Let’s take a look.
Contents
Safe/Safer
“It’s just nicotine, right? Surely it’s safe.”
Let’s define safe as “protected from or not exposed to danger or risk”.
Everything carries some level of risk. Getting in a car or an aeroplane, going to a concert, drinking a beer or a coffee, eating red meat, etc.
We instinctively understand and navigate risk in our personal lives because it can unlock some reward. This dynamic applies to people who consume nicotine.
Now, of course, people were prepared to smoke to access nicotine. In recent decades, products like vaping have cut those risks by 95%, while pouches are even safer!
Safe is an incredibly high bar that almost all human activities can’t pass. It’s ridiculous that nicotine is expected to be as safe as drinking water to be seen as a valid product.
Remember, because a product is marketed as “safer”, that’s not the same as saying it is “safe.”
Ammonia, chromium, formaldehyde, and nickel
This is a common misunderstanding. Let’s examine each compound and where it appears in daily food.
Ammonia
- Vegetables
- Dairy products
- Baked goods
Chromium
- Vegetables
- Fruit
- Whole grains
- Animal products
- Dairy and cereals
Formaldehyde
- Fruit
- Vegetables
- Meat
- Fish and seafood
- Coffee
- Dairy
Nickel
- Meat
- Fruit
- Root vegetables
- Dairy products
- White rice
The small amount of these chemicals that are found in nicotine pouches is well below the exposure from average food and water intake. Regulatory and toxicological assessments have consistently found that these levels of exposure are not of toxicological concern when compared to background dietary exposures.
The author’s argument above is essentially the same as warning people to avoid meat, fruit, and vegetables for fear of ingesting insignificant amounts of chemicals.
Microplastics
Next, the author shares an email he sent to Swedish Match, asking what its products are made from.
The reply is that their pouch paper uses a proprietary “semi-synthetic” material. The author translates this for half a million people to mean “made of plastic.”
However, this is not true. ZYN uses semi-synthetic fibres made from natural raw materials, such as cellulose, which are processed and reconstituted into fibres suitable for fabric production.
- Semi-synthetic fibres (such as rayon, viscose, modal, and lyocell) are made from natural cellulose, usually from things like wood pulp or bamboo. While the cellulose is chemically processed, it remains plant-based.
- Fully synthetic fibres (such as polyester, nylon, and acrylic) are made from petrochemicals. These are plastics, created entirely through chemical synthesis from fossil fuels.
In other words, one is made from plant matter, the other is from petroleum.
Further in the article, the author pushes another easily verifiable claim: pouches create microplastics.
We’ve dealt with that alternative fact here before if you want a more robust refutation.
TL;DR: Pouches don’t contain microplastics.
Chemically derived nicotine
The final piece of scaremongering comes from the claim that ZYN contains “chemically derived nicotine”, aka synthetic nicotine.
Synthetic nicotine is chemically identical to natural nicotine. If anything, it contains fewer impurities (alkaloids, nitrosamines, and heavy metals) than the standard tobacco-derived product.
Final thoughts
While this misinformation is not brought to us by financially incentivised tobacco control groups, it still bears many of the familiar hallmarks, such as a lack of curiosity, motivated reasoning, an ability to synthesise basic facts, and an unwillingness to perform crucial research.
I don’t doubt that the author is a good guy. He’s just misinformed. And now, half a million people who read his thread are too!
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