When school is in session, ZYN is one of the top sellers at the Mobil gas station on Hamilton Street.
Just around the corner from Gonzaga University, the convenience store advertises a promotional deal outside its entrance: "buy a 5-can roll, save $3.00" on the smokeless nicotine pouches, which come in an assortment of flavors.
"It's really big when school is in. We have students coming in all the time to buy it," said store manager Vanessa Bolter.
During Gonzaga's school year, Bolter estimates the gas station sells between 14 and 16 five-can rolls each week for the 10 flavors they carry.
Most students don't purchase any other nicotine products like cigarettes. If they do, it is other smokeless products like Velo. She believes students have this preference because it is an inconspicuous method of nicotine intake.
While it may be hard to see, especially when tucked under your bottom lip, nicotine pouches have become hard to ignore in recent years. They've grown so much, in fact, that state lawmakers across the country, including in Washington, have sought to change their tobacco taxes to apply to the expanding market.
The pouches contain powdered nicotine, which enters the user's bloodstream after dissolving in their mouth. Once absorbed, the nicotine triggers dopamine receptors in the brain, with many users reporting a feeling of relaxation or stimulation.
And over the past several years, they've skyrocketed in popularity.
In 2023, Philip Morris International U.S., which owns ZYN, shipped 384.8 million cans to the United States, a 62% increase over 2022. According to Yahoo Finance, shipments of the product increased from 132 million cans in Quarter 1 2024 to 202 million by the same time in 2025 in the United States. Sales in the United States increased by more than 50% in the first three months of 2025 compared to 2024.
This year, the popularity of the product caught the eye of Washington lawmakers, who sought to amend the state's tobacco tax laws to include ZYN products.
In the recently completed legislative session, Washington lawmakers approved a tax on products that contain tobacco or nicotine, "whether derived from tobacco or created synthetically." The products will now be subject to a 95% tax of the sale price, which will take effect on Jan. 1.
Rep. April Berg, who chairs the Finance Committee, told The Spokesman-Review in the final days of the legislative session that the tax was not meant to be punitive, but instead to adapt to a changing market.
"The nicotine product itself didn't exist when we made the tax code," Berg said.
A statement provided by a Philip Morris International U.S. spokesperson said the tax would make nicotine pouches " more expensive than cigarettes."
The statement noted that the Food and Drug Administration recently authorized the marketing of an array of ZYN products "due to substantially lower amounts of harmful constituents than cigarettes the authorized products pose a lower risk of cancer and other serious health conditions than cigarettes.
"Rather than pricing out better alternatives to cigarettes — the number one cause of preventable death and disease — the legislature should have adopted a tax framework that incentivizes legal-age consumers to choose better options," the statement said. "Instead, they've enacted a law that shifts sales across state lines, harming the businesses that sell these products and fueling a black market, all while keeping people smoking. We'd hope they'd do better for their citizens."
With the expanded tax, Washington joined a growing list of states that have amended their laws to impose new taxes on nicotine pouches. Last year, the Maine Legislature approved a new 42% tax on nicotine pouches, which took effect in August. Lawmakers in Minnesota adopted a 95% tax, with a minimum tax of $3.04 per container that also took effect last year.
In Nebraska, lawmakers recently opted to impose a 20% tax on products like ZYN, while legislators in Illinois created a new 45% tax on the wholesale price of ZYN that will take effect on July 1.
A spokesperson for the Idaho State Tax Commission told The Spokesman-Review Friday that non-tobacco nicotine pouches are taxed at 40% of the wholesale sales price in the state. Lawmakers in Oregon are currently considering a new tax on nicotine pouches to fund efforts to fight wildfires.
Audrey Miller Garcia, Washington government relations director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said the tax is "in the best interest of public health to help deter folks from starting to use those products."
"We were behind," Garcia said. "We should have had those products taxed as soon as they came on the market."
According to Garcia, the "best practice" for taxing tobacco products is for the prices to be relatively similar, regardless of the product, which she said deters usage.
"If you have cigarettes that are twice the price of these new, synthetic nicotine pouches, then people, they won't quit smoking, they'll change to a less expensive product," Garcia said. "The data shows that when people initiate, they'll initiate with the best-tasting, most marketed and least expensive tobacco product. And that was the danger, and the reason we needed to tax them. Because they needed to be defined as a tobacco product, but really because you have one really cheap, low-expense product, and you have something that's easier for people to initiate."
Garcia said that while high dosages of nicotine have proven harmful, there has not been enough long -term research yet on the potential health impacts of nicotine pouches.
Among those concerned with Washington's tax is Ethan Hill, an employee of Tobacco World in Spokane, who called it a "bad move."
"It won't do much but hurt businesses," Hill said. "Folks who want ZYN will just go over the state line."
Focused on specialty tobacco and pipes, Tobacco World does not rely on ZYN sales. Most sales of the product come from college-age men visiting or passing through Spokane from a place where it's restricted or taxed at a high rate.
Even with the state tax, you're likely to see more nicotine pouches in the coming years.
In the final days of the Biden administration, the Food and Drug Administration authorized the marketing of 20 ZYN products after "an extensive scientific review," which allows the product to be marketed to adults 21 and older.
"To receive marketing authorizations, the FDA must have sufficient evidence that the new products offer greater benefits to population health than risks," said Matthew Farrelly, former director of the Office of Science in the Center for Tobacco Products, in a Jan. 16 statement. "In this case, the data show that these nicotine pouch products meet that bar by benefiting adults who use cigarettes and/or smokeless tobacco products and completely switch to these products."
The decision applies to flavors including cool mint, peppermint, spearmint, wintergreen, citrus, coffee, cinnamon, smooth, chill and methanol
The agency specified the ruling does not mean the products "are safe, nor are they 'FDA approved.'" It did, however, find that ZYN poses " a lower risk of cancer and other serious health conditions" than most smokeless tobacco and cigarettes.
According to the agency, the designation also requires restrictions for digital, TV and radio commercials to ensure the targeted audience is at least 21 years old. The FDA's National Youth Tobacco Survey from 2024 did show a slight uptick in usage of smokeless nicotine pouches among middle and high schoolers, from 1.5% in 2023 to 1.8 in 2024.
"It's critical that the manufacturer market these products responsibly to prevent youth use," Brian King, former director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, said in a Jan. 16 statement. "While current data show that youth use remains low, the FDA is closely monitoring the marketplace and is committed to taking action, as appropriate, to best protect public health."
© 2025 The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.). Visit www.spokesman.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
