Around 7.5% of 16 to 24-year-old-men are using the small sachets that fit under the top lip, compared with 1.9% use among young women and 1% among adults overall. Most pouch users - estimated to be around half a million people - also smoke or vape, and a growing number are using them to give up smoking, University College London researchers found.
Smoking is one of the clearest public-health failures of our time. More than 500,000 Americans still die each year from smoking-related illnesses, and globally the picture is even more alarming. In the United States, anti-smoking campaigns have reduced the number of new cigarette users, but the effectiveness of these measures may be fading. Indeed, the headline of a widely-shared news story notes "Celebrities Are Making Smoking Cigarettes Cool Again". Yikes.
After vapes staved off the extinction of tobacco, a new generation of nicotine products is promising a safer, albeit no less addictive, form of consumption through tobacco-free pouches made popular by the likes of Zyn and Velo. Now, a celebrity-backed upstart called Sesh is trying to challenge those incumbents. Buoyed by $40 million in venture funding from Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale's 8VC, along with music stars Diplo and Post Malone,
