FDA Gave ZYN Twenty Flavors in January. Teen Nicotine Addiction Is Getting Worse.

In January 2026, the FDA authorized ZYN — the Swedish-made nicotine pouch that colonized convenience store counters behind every cashier in America — in twenty flavor varieties, including mango and blueberry. Three days after the authorization, twenty-one state attorneys general sent the agency a letter expressing “serious concerns” that the decision would increase youth access to flavored, nicotine-containing products. The FDA has not changed course.

Nicotine pouches are the one tobacco product category that has increased in use among young people over the last five years. They’re discreet — no smoke, no vapor, nothing visible — and they fit under a lip at a desk or in class. ZYN holds roughly 68.7 percent of the youth nicotine pouch market. Over 85 percent of young people who use nicotine pouches choose flavored options, according to the 2024 National Youth Tobacco Survey.

The FDA’s defense of the authorization rests on a standard harm-reduction argument: the pouches are less dangerous than combustible cigarettes for adult smokers trying to quit. That may well be true. It’s also not the only thing that’s happening. The population most enthusiastically adopting nicotine pouches is not adult smokers making a healthier switch. It is teenagers who have never smoked cigarettes at all.

This is a version of the same dynamic that played out with flavored e-cigarettes a decade ago, which the FDA spent years trying to walk back after the data became undeniable. The JUUL era created a cohort of young people more nicotine-dependent than their parents who smoked Marlboros — not less. Daily vaping among teen vapers rose from 15.4 percent in 2020 to 28.8 percent in 2025. Failed quit attempts among that daily group went from 28 percent to 53 percent in the same period, according to a 2026 study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health. Nicotine addiction, once established in adolescence, is durable and difficult to treat. The pouches are a new delivery mechanism for the same problem. Approving them in mango flavor is not harm reduction. It’s a new experiment with a population we already know is vulnerable.

The treatment implications are real: smoking cessation support — quitlines, varenicline (Chantix), cytisinicline — was built around combustible tobacco and has weak evidence for e-cigarette or pouch cessation. The toolbox for treating teen nicotine addiction is already thin. Adding a new, highly flavored, nearly invisible product category to the market makes the population harder to serve, not easier.

Comments on the FDA’s enforcement discretion policy for nicotine pouches are open until the end of June.