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Zyn’s Popular Rewards Program Called Out For Promoting Nicotine Addiction From Public Health Advocates 

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Zyn is a brand known for their flavored nicotine pouches that are becoming very popular among younger people. Users of Zyn are now collecting their containers, which are equipped with QR codes that can be used to collect points. Each can is worth 15 points and consumers can earn up to 60 points per month. 

When these points are redeemed on Zyn’s website, users can unlock items such as Dyson Airwraps, KitchenAid mixers, Tory Burch tote bags, and even iPads, according to reports. 

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Tobacco-free nicotine pouches like Zyn have long been used to help cigarette smokers aged 21 and up quit. The pouches are placed between the gums and lips to release nicotine into the bloodstream. 

However, the rewards system and aesthetically pleasing packaging has made Zyn popular for non-smokers on social media, especially younger consumers. 

The company that owns Zyn, Philip Morris International, stated that they shipped 350 million cans of their pouches last year, which was a 62% increase in the US when compared to the sales in 2022, according to CNN. 

Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, stated:

“I’m delivering a warning to parents, because these nicotine pouches seem to lock their sights on young kids – teenagers, and even lower – and then use social media to hook ’em.”

Shumer has called on both the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate the health impact of Zyn and its seemingly intentional marketing towards younger individuals. 

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Dr. Robert K Jackler, a professor at Stanford Medicine and principal investigator at Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising, explained that while social media platforms like TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X don’t allow for paid promotion from the nicotine industry, there are ways to work around it. 

“We saw Juul use hashtag amplification tremendously, getting users to put up posts with #MothersDay or #Party, or whatever. Now, it’s ‘Zynfluencers,’ or those who unofficially rep the brand on social media. There’s free organic marketing,” Jackler said, according to the Guardian. 

According to Fortune Magazine, Philip Morris International stated that Zyn’s online marketing, and rewards program specifically, is specifically directed to legal nicotine users aged 21 and above. Their advertising application for Zyn is currently being reviewed by the FDA.

Tobacco and nicotine companies are legally allowed to have reward programs under federal law, as long as the rewards themselves aren’t more nicotine/tobacco products. Zyn has a multitude of products for their rewards such as Apple AirTags, Visa giftcards, Zippo lighters, Swiss army knives, and Yeti tumblers. 

“You see people showing their prizes alongside packs of Zyn or even just showing the stacks of empty Zyn packs that they are going to redeem. This is free advertising for the company,” said Lauren Czaplicki, an associate scientist at the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

“It’s the gamification of nicotine use. The viral buzz and high value prizes really drive purchasing and consumption, which is worrying. Then you have the potential for people to get addicted to the product and to playing the rewards program game, and the two mutually reinforce each other,” Czaplicki added.

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Finnish Politician Sanna Marin Set to Become Youngest World Leader

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Finland, like many other Nordic countries, is known for its progressive social and political environment, as countries in this part of the world tend to favor policies associated with socialism and other liberal forms of government. Finland recently held an election that resulted in the election of a historically young and mostly female parliament, led by the 34-year-old Sanna Marin. When she is sworn in later this week, she will become the youngest prime minister in the world. Additionally, young women in Finland will soon hold many high-level government positions, with five women holding top spots in parliament, four of whom are younger than 35.

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In an interview with a Finnish publication, Marin commented that she had “not actually ever thought about [her] age or gender,” adding that she thinks the reason her party won the election have more to do with their policies and their ability to connect with their electorate. While such a comment from a nation’s future leader might be unimaginable in many parts of the world, not the least of which is the United States, which has had a predominantly male government for the entirety of the country’s history. However, Finland and other Nordic countries has a far more egalitarian culture than much of the Western world, as many of the barriers preventing women from holding positions of power are mitigated. The country elected its first female prime minister in 2003, and women make up almost half of its parliament after this year’s election.

In fact, the country’s political landscape is so progressive that its former prime minister, Alexander Stubb, who is a conservative, praised his country for its modern and progressive stance on female political representation, saying that one day “gender will not matter in government.” In Finland, the fact that these newly elected leaders are so young may actually be more culturally significant than the fact that they are mainly female, as the country has for years had a large percentage of women in its government. Whereas roughly half of Finland’s government officials are women, less than a quarter of American representatives and senators are female, and hopes for the country’s first female president were dispelled after Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump, in an apparent rejection of progressive social policies like gender equality.

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A number of potential explanations exist for why Finland and other Nordic countries are so far ahead of the rest of the world in this area, many of which have to do with social policies that enable women to advance in their careers at a similar rate as their male counterparts. For instance, Finland has a generous paid parental leave policy, which applies to both mothers and fathers, which makes it easier for women to keep their careers while also raising families. The country has had robust reproductive health policies since the 1970s, including widespread access to abortion and birth control as well as comprehensive sex education in public schools.

While Finland should be commended for its success in promoting gender equality, it’s also important to point out that the country also has problems with discrimination, like virtually everywhere in the world. Specifically, immigrant women and indigenous women are the most likely to face discrimination, as these populations have much greater difficulty finding employment, and growing rates of immigration to Nordic countries from places like Afghanastan and Russia are fueling anti-immagrant sentiment. Still, the country has taken tremendous steps from the point of view of its embrace of progressive policies and representation, and serves as a model for gender activists in the rest of the world who are fighting for equality and fair representation.

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John Green’s YA Novel “Looking for Alaska” Adapted for Hulu Miniseries

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For years, John Green has authored young adult novels which have received widespread acclaim, not only from his audience of young readers, but from critics around the world. The author’s success has led to the adaptation of several of his stories on the big screen; in 2014, Green’s book about teenagers with cancer who fall in love was adapted into a feature film, and the following year, Paper Towns, a romantic mystery comedy-drama film based on the 2008 novel of the same name, found its way to movie theaters around the world. Both films were financial successes, with the former movie receiving generally positive reviews and the latter film receiving mixed reviews. Their success has led to renewed interest in adapting Green’s other works, including his first novel, the Printz Medal winner Looking for Alaska, which is about a burgeoning romance between two teenagers at a boarding school that ends in tragedy.

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John Green sold the film rights to Paramount Pictures in 2005, just a year after the novel’s publication, with the belief that it would never be adapted into a film. Paramount had shelved the project for years, due to a lack of interest, but started looking more seriously at the prospect of adapting the novel after the success of the film version of The Fault in Our Stars. In 2015 Paramount commissioned a screenplay of the book, and had begun actively casting the film, but plans to produce the movie were canceled indefinitely. In 2018, it was announced that Hulu would be producing an 8-part miniseries based on the book, and John Green announced the lead cast, with Kristine Froseth playing Alaska and Charlie Plummer playing the book’s main character, Miles. Production of the series has been completed, and all eight episodes are set to premiere tomorrow, October 18, 2019, exclusively on the Hulu streaming platform.

Initial reviews of the miniseries, which were released today, are mostly positive. Caroline Framke of Variety thought that the miniseries “wears its bleeding heart on its sleeve,” as its precocious and pretentious cast of teenage characters rings true to the experience of life as a teenager, even if the characters’ superiority complexes start to grate on the viewer. Nevertheless, she praised the miniseries for fleshing out its secondary characters, even though she felt the series’ protagonist was uninteresting. Though she felt that the series’ depiction of Alaska hewed closely to tropes of the genre, as she represents a variation of the infamous “manic pixie dream girl” archetype, the show uses its eight-hour runtime to expand on her character enough to make viewers genuinely interested in her character.

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Jordan Julian, of The Daily Beast, was even more laudatory, claiming that the series is even better than the book, and characterized the show as “beautiful and idealized, foreboding, and entirely relatable to anyone who recalls the intensity of being a teenager.” According to Julian, the show excels in a genre that’s “notoriously difficult to get right,” as she felt that the characters’ dialogue was “natural and self-aware,” and applauded the show for developing Alaska’s character beyond the male narrator’s interpretation featured in the book. Kristine Froseth, of Hollywood Reporter, also praised the series, though she felt that the series “struggles to crack the title character.” Like the other reviewers, Julian praised the series’ decision to keep the events set in 2005 rather than updating the timeline for a modern audience, as this decision both solves the problem of characters not engaging with cell phones and social media as well as invokes a sense of childhood nostalgia among the series’ adult audience, helping them to connect with the youthful mindsets of the cast.

Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone gave the show a similarly positive review, awarding it four out of five stars. Sepinwall thought the show gave Green’s characters “the respect they deserve,” as they are portrayed by a talented and charming cast of young actors. Not every reviewer, however, was so positive. Kevin Yeoman of Screen Rant complained that the miniseries failed to “escape its own artificiality,” arguing that the show came off as neither realistic nor significant. Yeoman felt that the characters were incompletely written, having a set of personality quirks rather than cohesive personalities. 

You can watch the trailer for Looking for Alaska here. 

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