*names changed to protect identities
Senior Phoebe Miller* fidgets in her chair during third hour. She can’t concentrate on the lesson and starts getting a splitting headache.
Without a second thought, she fishes through her backpack for that familiar circular plastic container. Pulling out a white pouch the size of a piece of gum, Miller pops it in her bottom lip and her headache melts away. What looks like just a stick of minty gum to her teacher and classmates is really a fix of nicotine sprinkled with artificial flavoring and preservatives.
“In the past, if I wanted nicotine during class, I’d have to go to the bathroom,” Miller said. “Now with Zyn — and this is probably what makes them so bad — when I’m sitting in class and if I really want to have one, I can have one. It’s really easy to just reach in my backpack and sneak a ‘piece of gum.’”
Miller uses Zyn and other oral nicotine pouches along with at least 34 other East students, according to an Instagram poll of 200 studen...
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