[abeppu]

I think this is silly. This is a product designed to deliver nicotine, and that's going to continue to be the important part for health considerations. Had the FDA become concerned about the pouch material, and a different pouch material had been swapped in, it would still be a product designed to deliver nicotine.

If it's used in a way that gets people away from smoking, maybe it can have an impact of decreased cancer risk. If used by people who weren't going to smoke, then maybe the impacts to blood pressure, heart rate, and heart disease risk are going to dominate.

The "maybe you accumulate more microplastics" impact is a rounding error.

[EA-3167]

That's been the pitch from "harm reduction" activists who didn't bother to check on the reality, and the pitch from Phillip Morris.

The reality is that products like Zyn are most popular in a young demographic that's not only NOT using it to quit smoking, it's actually just a supplement to their smoking. In many cases Zyn and Vaping lead to smoking, not the other way around.

Finally lets remember that safer means of delivering nicotine to the system exist, they simply aren't addictive, marketable, or profitable.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10203764/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10203764/

[OkayPhysicist]

"Vapes leading to smoking" headlines are always WILDLY misleading. If you look at the surveys they use to create those responses, they always include exceptionally low-frequency cigarette use. (think, "have you smoked a cigarette in the last month"). This captures habitual vapers who, once in a while, can't get a hold of vape juice, and buy a pack of cigarettes.

Like, maybe my vape runs out of battery while I'm out for a night of clubbing with my friends. Nicotine and alcohol get along like a house on fire, and I've got a bit of a habit, so I pop into a gas station. They're not selling vapes, they're selling cigarettes. So I buy a pack of cigarettes, smoke a couple, and probably end up ditching the pack once I get a hold of a charger because vapes are better in every way.

I'm in an age bracket where a lot of people picked up a nicotine habit in college, and literally zero of couple dozen users I know stopped vaping and started smoking cigarettes. Vaping's cheaper, more comfortable (no burning your throat), safer (not to be confused with "healthy"), and doesn't make you stink. And the single biggest reason nobody switches from habitual vaping to habitual smoking is that smoking provides less nicotine. You need to be slurping down cigarettes to get a similar hit.

[cwmoore]

There are advertisements from the 1950s for asbestos-filtered cigarettes. How many of those cancer cases are you counting against nicotine?