The dangers of Big Tobacco’s faux-pharmaceutical rebrand
Nicotine products like Zyn are becoming a cornerstone of Big Tobacco’s profits and skyrocketing in popularity – particularly among young people. Despite California’s progress in drastically reducing smoking, the state is no exception to this trend, with nicotine pouch use nearly doubling in the past year among adolescents.1 Tobacco companies are making this shift towards nicotine products because they have seen the writing on the wall: Thanks to a combination of public health policy, shifting public attitudes around the dangers of smoking, and declining cigarette sales and smoking rates, the tobacco industry’s profits have been in decline for years. Soon, cigarette manufacturing will become unprofitable in the United States.2 Tobacco executives’ public response to this business crisis is to tell investors that nicotine products will not only fill the hole in the market left by cigarettes, but also allow them to profit off of pretending to solve the public health crisis that they created.3
“My research on previously-sealed [tobacco] industry documents shows that... they believed they would need to adopt the public image of a 'socially responsible' company to continue maximizing their profits.”
My research on previously-sealed industry documents shows that the current strategy to claw back lost profits from the next generation with new products dates back to the late 1990s, when tobacco industry giant Philip Morris came to the conclusion that being the world’s leading cigarette manufacturer wouldn’t be enough for them to maintain market dominance.4 Instead, they believed they would need to adopt the public image of a “socially responsible” company to continue maximizing their profits. To create this perception without compromising their bottom line, Philip Morris invested heavily in acquiring their competition, initially sold as smoking cessation devices – vapes and oral nicotine pouches – to profit off and appear to be part of the solution to the tobacco epidemic.
How did Big Tobacco marketing deceive the public?
To revamp their image, Big Tobacco relies on two deceptive moves. First, they seek to decouple tobacco from nicotine – creating a false perception that non-tobacco nicotine products are less harmful.5 Next, they build on this lie to get around tobacco regulations with a host of “faux pharmaceutical” products – products they present to regulators as medical-grade tools to assist smokers wean off and eventually quit – yet as evidenced by the candy flavors and party imagery in their advertising, market to youth and young adults.67
Big Tobacco has shifted gears, leading the public to believe that the “impurities” in tobacco – tar and other additives – were the real problem all along, conveniently ignoring the research that nicotine itself is a poison and intrinsically harmful.8 Nicotine contributes significantly to heart disease, which causes more deaths in smokers than lung cancer.910 Current vaping prevalence among California young adults (18-25 years old) is 12.1 percent, the highest among any age group.11 Crucially, these young adults were among the cohort that were middle and high school students during the height of the youth vaping epidemic, further signaling that the goal of these products is to initiate new users – not help current users quit.12
The truth is: There is no safe commercial nicotine product
Nicotine is extraordinarily addictive and disease causing even when decoupled from combustible tobacco products.13 It can increase blood pressure and increase risk of a heart attack.8 It can amplify feelings of anxiety, depression, mood swings, and irritability.14 Taken in excess, it can induce vomiting, diarrhea, extreme fatigue, tremors, and increased blood pressure.15 And perhaps worst of all, it can permanently change the developing brain, priming it for addiction to substances and compulsions of all kinds.8
There are therapeutic tools that are certified by the FDA to help nicotine-addicted people quit, like nicotine patches and prescription medications. These products are subject to a rigorous safety approval process, are made to be weaned off of, and are not manufactured with the sole purpose of making indefinite profits.16 By marketing vapes and nicotine pouches as medicines, Big Tobacco deliberately confuses the people who want to quit and introduces dangerous products to kids who would have never used any tobacco product in the first place.
Big Tobacco has hidden the fact that they created the twin epidemics of smoking and youth vaping, and make money on both sides of a cycle of addiction and suffering. While more research on the long-term health impacts of newer products like nicotine pouches and heated tobacco products will certainly give us more data on which to act, one thing is clear: These untested products are not meant to put the companies that sell them out of business. Instead of solving the tobacco epidemic, they aim to extend it by other means.
If you or your loved one is already struggling with nicotine addiction, California offers free, personalized tools to help nicotine users quit for good. Visit kickitca.org to learn more.
By Dr. Yogi Hendlin, Environmental Philosopher and Public Health Scientist
Dr. Hendlin is an Assistant Professor of the Dynamics of Inclusive Prosperity Initiative and the Erasmus School of Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam, and has worked in tobacco control for two decades, principally at the University of California, San Francisco.
