Snus is a smokeless nicotine product that you insert between your gum and your upper lip. Your saliva soaks into the pouch which in turn releases nicotine, entering the bloodstream without a million tiny pesky tar particulates. In the UK, it is illegal to sell tobacco-based snus, though the non-tobacco variant, also known as nicotine pouches, is legal and widely accessible. The industry is worth something like £250 million and is growing rapidly. It’s a discreet way for smokers to opt for a safer hit of nicotine – so, inevitably, Labour is looking to ban it.
I think part of the charm of snus is its subtlety. A vape can be garish and obnoxious
Labour’s authoritarian approach to nicotine products is a confusing one. How are we supposed to wean ourselves off cigarettes if the tobacco-less alternatives are also banned? Am I expected to wait in a piss-soaked alleyway for some racketeer wearing sunglasses and a trench coat lined with vapes? Am I expected to scour the dark web for illicit supplies of nicotine pouches and end up mistakenly buying a packet of anthrax instead? I’m not convinced that Labour even knows what snus is or, indeed, what it does. I’ll help them out. Snus is moist. Snus is small. Snus (the non-tobacco kind) is sold in almost every corner shop in England. Snus doesn’t blow up in your mouth and leave your jaw dangling loosely from a few muscle fibres because snus doesn’t contain a lithium polymer battery with a 250mAh capacity.
It was the French diplomat and scholar Jean Nicot who kickstarted the trend for ingesting nicotine (rather than smoking it) by giving Queen Catherine de’ Medici some snuff in an attempt to cure her headaches. This practice of sniffing tobacco made its way to Sweden in the early 17th century and became increasingly popular; so popular that in 1724 King Fredrik I issued a decree calling for tobacco to be cultivated across the nation.
But snorting snuff isn’t convenient when you’re a Swedish peasant toiling the land. You need something that gives you a nicotine high and stays in your mouth while you work. Enter snus. In 1822, Jacob Fredrik Ljunglöf founded the world’s first snus brand, Ettan, which is still around today and accounts for one-fifth of all snus sales in Sweden. You can thank Mr Ljunglöf for those cockroach-sized teabag-looking pouches of nicotine you see mashed into the corners of ashtrays or littered around the smoking area of a pub. You can also thank Ljunglöf for your favourite footballer having a severe nicotine addiction – around one in five professional footballers use snus.
The advent of smoking bans, health warnings and high taxation is largely what brought snus to the forefront of smoking alternatives in recent years. And whether you’re a snuser or not, these little pouches have taken the smoking (or non-smoking) world by storm.
Zyn – the ‘No.1 nicotine pouch brand in the world’ according to their website – is leading the charge. Zyn is owned by Philip Morris International (PMI). PMI also owns Marlboro, Chesterfield and Iqos: a heated tobacco brand that claims to be less harmful than regular cigarettes but smells like farts and spit. Zyn comes in a variety of flavours: cool mint, icy blackcurrant, chili guava, espresso, citrus. The flavours are designed to sound as harmless as possible. No one is going to buy a pouch called ‘wet fizz gum recession and impotence’. I can only assume they’ve taken inspiration from vaping brands like Lost Mary, whose names are a real pick & mix treat: blueberry sour raspberry, juicy peach, pink lemonade, blue razz cherry, triple mango.
Zyn taken on a political edge in United States. The rise of Zynfluencers – a subculture of Gen Z snus fanatics – has given the brand immense media attention in recent months. There are thousands of videos on TikTok and Instagram of Zyn cakes, Zyn dog toys and Zyn memes with typical Gen Z hashtags to match: #lipcushies, #upperdeckers, #lippillows, #lipgummies, #ZynnstonChurchills, #ThomasJefferzyns, #MonicaLezynskis, #ZynniethePoohs, #ZynShapiros. While some see this trend as a subculture of right-wing ‘Mascuzynity’, others aren’t convinced. Just last week, it was announced that Tucker Carlson – or ‘Tucker CarlZyn’ for the Zynfluencers reading this – was starting his own rival brand of snus called Alp. Carlson, a previous advocate of Zyn, argued that the brand had ties with Kamala Harris and was run by ‘left-wing drones’, though a company spokesperson at PMI denied Mr Carlson’s claims.
Politics aside, I think part of Zyn’s charm is its subtlety. A vape can be garish and obnoxious. My late father switched to vaping after 30 years of smoking tobacco; I grew to loathe his obsession. We’d sit in his Lexus as he’d chuff away on a cigar-sized rod of metal, lecturing me about the risks of mad cow disease and blowing clouds of popcorn-flavoured vapour all over my 12-year-old face. This doesn’t happen with snus. Instead, you slip a small, potent pouch of nicotine into your upper gums and leave it there for anywhere between 30 and 120 minutes. When you’re done, you take it out, chuck it in the bin and go again.
The health risks surrounding snus are slightly opaque. Where tobacco is involved, cancer is always lurking. But when it comes to the tobacco-free products in the UK, the jury is still out. A 2022 study found that 44 tobacco-free nicotine pouch products and two nicotine-free variants contained cancer-causing chemicals. WebMD says the side effects can range from hiccups and gum irritation to a sore mouth and a nicotine addiction. WebMD also stresses that one should ‘never share a nicotine pouch with someone else’. I’m glad they cleared that up because I really fancied going two’s on a Zyn with my friend tonight and catching oral thrush.
I’m not a snus convert. Not yet. Regrettably, I still smoke real cigarettes. I tried vaping once because I was getting tired of my clothes smelling like Serge Gainsbourg had worn them to an orgy. But vaping wasn’t for me. I didn’t like how I’d wake up in the morning and taste the apple or ice dragon fruit flavour on my tongue. I also didn’t like how it made me look like a barista in Dalston. Maybe it’s time to give snus another go. So what if it might cause gum recession? So what if my nicotine addiction will triple in intensity and I’ll never be able to wean myself off it without going goo goo ga ga? So what if I have to finger around in my mouth every half an hour to remove a very smelly spit pouch? It’s still got to look better than vaping, and that’s a start.
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