Nicotine pouches are everywhere — except in the trash

For the last five years, Gabby Masseran has loved working as a bartender in Denver, Colorado — even if it means the occasional sticky floor or messy table.

For the last five years, Gabby Masseran has loved working as a bartender in Denver, Colorado — even if it means the occasional sticky floor or messy table. Lately, that professional joy has been tested by a tiny piece of trash now found everywhere from underneath tables to empty drink glasses: used nicotine pouches.

“I just started noticing them the past year, people just spit them all over the ground, in the urinal, in anywhere they could possibly spit it except for the trash,” Masseran, 23, told NBC News. “It used to be gum under the tables, now it’s just Zyns.”

It’s a complaint Masseran said she hears from other bartenders as nicotine pouches like Zyn — small packets that deliver nicotine through the gums without smoke or vapor — have become one of the fastest-growing segments of the tobacco market.

The small disposable sachets of nicotine salt and other chemicals can now be found almost everywhere — and that's part of the problem.

The pouches, sold by a variety of companies, come in different doses and flavors — and can last between 30 minutes and an hour and 45 minutes, depending on their strength. Despite the rise of other tobacco alternatives like vapes, sales of nicotine pouches, stored in circular, gum-like dispensers, soared 641% from 2019 to 2022, according to 2024 research cited in the Journal of the American Medical Association.