The Confusing and Extremely Online Politics of Zyn Nicotine Pouches

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Tucker Carlson used to love Zyn nicotine pouches. Now he hates them so much he’s started his own brand and conservative weirdos online are calling for a boycott. It’s a stunning turnaround for the nicotine delivery system that’s been in the culture war barrel for a year now, first as a conservative darling fighting overbearing legislators in Washington and now as an embattled brand losing market share for turning against the right.

And all because of a dick joke.

Carlson loves nicotine and he’s long made no secret of the pleasure he once took in Zyn. When Carlson hung out with YouTube pranksters the Nelk Boys last year, the YouTubers used a helicopter to fly in a giant tin of Zyn as a gift. “This is the greatest day,” Carlson said upon seeing the Zyn.

Last October, Carlson appeared on the comedian Theo Von’s podcast where he talked about his love of the pouches.

“The truth is, Zyn is a powerful work enhancer, and also a male enhancer if you know what I mean,” he said.

Phillip Morris, who manufactures Zyn, didn’t appreciate Carlson’s joke when. When Carlson later reached out in an attempt to form a partnership with the tobacco giant, it declined.

“While we understand that these may be Mr. Carlson’s views, or made in jest, these statements lack a scientific foundation. Given Mr. Carlson’s popularity and reach, these statements could promote a misunderstanding and misuse of our products,” Phillip Morris said in a response to Carlson published by the Wall Street Journal.

Phillip Morris’ reluctance to be associated with a quack medical claim, even a joking one, is understandable. Tobacco companies have made outrageous claims about the medical properties of cigarettes and other nicotine products for decades. These days, everyone knows that smoking cigarettes causes cancer and the world is extremely sensitive about how nicotine is marketed, but it wasn’t always so.

And Phillip Morris has already spent a lot of the last year defending itself from regulators. Tobacco pouches have been around since the 1970s but didn’t take off in the U.S. until the early 2000s. Zyn hit the market in 2014 and has gained a lot of popularity in the last few years. Phillip Morris shipped 116 million cans of the stuff in the fourth quarter of 2023, a 78% increase in sales.

The popularity caught the eye of Washington regulators. In January, Chuck Schumer called for a federal crackdown on the pouches. The FDA issued warning letters against retailers in April for selling Zyn to kids despite it claiming in the same press release that there was no evidence of an increase in youth nicotine use. In June, the feds subpoenaed Phillip Morris over its sale of flavored Zyn pouches and the company halted all online sales of the product.

The conservative backlash to the federal government’s attempt to take away nicotine pouches from those addicted to the stuff was swift.

“This calls for a Zynsurrection!” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, a Republican from Georgia, said in a post on X. “The same Democrats that want to legalize all drugs and have ripped open our border flooding our country with fentanyl, a real weapon of mass destruction killing 300 Americans/day, wants to ban Zyn. Democrats are idiots.”

Carlson, however, has not come to Zyn’s defense. In fact, he decided to launch a competitor.

“I’ve used a certain brand, I’m embarrassed to say it, it’s made by a certain company, a certain brand, huge donors to Kamala Harris,” he said in an interview with the Old Row clothing company on Tuesday. “I’m not gonna use that brand anymore. I mean, I think it’s fine. It’s good for your girlfriend or whatever but I don’t think men should use that brand.”

According to Open Secrets, a website that tracks political donations, Phillip Morris employees have indeed donated money to Kamala Harris this election cycle. But it’s a grand total of $18,200, hardly the massive amount of cash described by Carlson. He also started promoting Alp, his newly launched brand of nicotine pouches. For Carlson, the culture war is big business.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Carlson brought it all back to Phillip Morris’ reaction to his dick joke.

“Of course, I wasn’t making a medical claim about their product. I was just joking,” he told the Journal. “So I thought: ‘I’m going to launch my own product that’s not controlled by, you know, humorless, left-wing drones.’”

Meanwhile, on social media, right-wing drones said they were done with Zyn and pledged to buy Alp.

The Nelk Boys apparently didn’t get the memo. The group appeared at a Trump Rally in Las Vegas on Sept. 14 and shouted out Zyn.

“We need Trump back and we need him back bad,” Nelk Boy Kyle Forgeard said. “One more thing…Governor Tim Walz, he put a 95% tax on Zyn. You gotta get that removed President Trump.” Minnesota imposed a 95% tax on all “tobacco-free products containing nicotine” in July.