Thinking about dropping those flavorful white sachets of nicotine this resolution season? You might want to reconsider how fast you hit the off ramp.
Zyns — those tiny nicotine pouches that seem to nowinfest every urinal, bar-top, and sidewalk — have captured the hearts and mouths of many who would never consider smoking a cigarette, let alone packing ‘chaw. Since tobacco giant Philip Morris International acquired the Swedish brand for $16 billion in 2022, Zyn consumption among teens and young adults has nearly quadrupled, according to a November study by the CDC Foundation.
As it turns out, it’s much easier to start on the packs than it is to quit, especially if you go cold turkey. A horrifying profile by GQ details writer Rosecrans Baldwin’s effort to go from one 15-pouch can per day to none, virtually overnight. His experience was agonizing.
About four hours after deciding to lay off the nicotine lodes for good, Baldwin wrote that he began to experience dizziness, headaches, intense sweating, a rapid heart rate, clenching jaw, and even rolling hallucinations.
“For several hours, I’d been haunted by yellow-tinted hallucinations, sweeping in and out of my mind like searchlights, which told me I might’ve slipped between worlds,” he explained of his withdrawal experience. “The street was quiet and empty. I knew I shouldn’t stand, let alone go anywhere, in case the situation got worse.”
Little did he know at the time, Baldwin was in the throes of a panic attack, very likely brought about by acute nicotine withdrawal. “I was afraid I’d lost my mind,” he recalled.
In the US, Zyn sells its pouches in strengths varying from 3mg to 6mg. Though cigarettes contain anywhere from 10 to 12mg of nicotine, less than 2mg typically enters the body for each cigarette smoked, since a lot of the smoke drifts away. The absorption rate on nicotine pouches is much higher, as nicotine is delivered straight through the mouth’s mucous membranes and into the blood vessels.
Though Baldwin admits he’s long held a casual relationship with nicotine, he says Zyns took the habit to another level.
“Years went by when I didn’t smoke at all, and there were a few years when I smoked maybe a couple cigarettes a week,” he said. “My Zyn use turbocharged all of that, fostering a dependence I fed unwittingly, with a sachet secreting nicotine into every waking moment for more than a year.”
Baldwin’s first quitting attempt wasn’t successful, as he soon bought a pack of cigarettes and fell back into “nicotine’s grasp.” A while later, though, he decided to try again, this time by winding down his intake steadily over a few months — an effort which he says has finally freed him from the substance once and for all.
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