The Wall Street Journal ran a recent news article claiming that nicotine’s image is being rehabilitated. It suggests that businesses and influencers are promoting the substance as a potential aid to focus, mood and memory, claims that the author suggests are poorly supported.
Let’s take a look.
The article
The article is by Sara Ashley O’Brien. Per her WSJ bio, she covers the Style section, which overlaps with “the business and culture of wellness and how celebrities and influencers shape public opinion.” This beat makes her a suitable candidate to cover influencers, but maybe a little less solid on evaluating the claims about nicotine’s ability to improve cognition.
Still, I welcome this article and its angle, because slippery marketing and false promises should be put under the microscope and, in the parlance, “called out” if necessary.
Marketing claims
The author begins by highlighting a few of the subcultures and companies that are, in her view, improperly promoting nicotine. She starts with the biohacking community and even mentions the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA), but without naming RFK specifically. Then, she talks about how some startups are even making nicotine pouches available for free to staff.
However, she reserves most of her focus for a few companies, including Lucy, Athletic Nicotine, and Nic Nac. Let’s look at the issues that are highlighted.
Lucy
She suggests that Lucy’s promotion of its products as “intelligent nicotine” and its marketing making explicit references to enhancing focus, boosting energy and relaxing is dubious. The article also questions the validity of claims that their target audience is people who already use nicotine for these purposes.
Nic Nac
Next up, Nic Nac goes under the spotlight for claiming it uses “premium” ingredients which give people an “edge” in the office or the gym. Again, its marketing suggests it for existing users of nicotine.
Athletic Nicotine
Finally, Athletic Nicotine uses a rowing-machine image and says it sells “next-level nicotine for the winner in all of us”, which connects nicotine with exercise, achievement and athletic identity. Like the other two companies listed above, its website says it does not market itself “as a health product, wellness supplement, or performance enhancer.”
What’s going on here?
Without more specific examples, I’m not sure this is solid proof of a wellness pivot toward nicotine. What I would say is that many nicotine brands are prone to wince-inducing messaging. In some ways, it’s not their fault. I mean, what can you really say about your nicotine brand that makes it stand out?
Market differentiation is an advertising concept where a brand gives its target audience a clear, meaningful reason to choose your business, product, or service over competitors. But regulatory, supplier, and margin restrictions mean that brands are effectively offering the same or very similar products.
All that’s left to help a product stand out are things like flavours or colours, which are also bound in many markets. As such, marketing copy has to do a lot of heavy lifting. Copywriters are left trying to connect products to consumers' lives, with an increasing focus on health and performance optimisation across a wide variety of metrics.
Are the claims reasonable?
The article quotes two researchers, Dr Hasmeena Kathuria and Melissa Little. Both academics dismiss any links between nicotine and mental benefits. However, they just tell us that this research does not exist. The problem here is that, with only a little digging, you can find a lot of work that covers the subject of improved memory, energy, focus, and so on.
While it would be premature to say these benefits are supported by ironclad data, there is a lot of research. We’ve covered this in previous posts, such as this one, which shares five papers on the link between nicotine and intelligence.
Whether these improvements are sustainable, will work on every population, or justify any kind of trade-off is at least up for debate, if not cautiously supported. Dismissing potential benefits out of hand requires believing that people who use nicotine for these reasons are engaged in some kind of mass delusion.
The fact is, people do use nicotine for a variety of reasons. College students are using it as a study aid; it’s partly replacing Adderall on trading floors, and it's used by high-performing athletes in the English Premier League, and beyond. It clearly has some utility. Whether that effectiveness is enough to justify the messaging of various new nicotine companies and their lavish or over-the-top copy and branding is another question.
Final thoughts
Nicotine use is not on the rise in the US. As of 2025, smoking and vaping are trending down, and nicotine pouches form a small, if growing, part of the market. Claims that there is some kind of tech bro/MAHA/wellness influencer movement are probably exaggerated, even if these things get disproportionate column inches.
Finally, I’m not sure if nicotine’s reputation is truly being rehabilitated. Sure, the substance was damned by association because of the demonisation of tobacco, which has led the public to have a totally distorted view of its harms. A correction to that record is long overdue, but a glance at public perception figures will tell you that's a long way off.
