How New York Gov. Hochul’s proposed Zyn tax could encourage smoking, undermine public health

Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed extending New York’s 75 percent wholesale tax on tobacco products to include nicotine pouches. For example, a can of Zyn, which currently runs $8 to $11 at a New York City bodega, would likely cost $12 to $15.50 after tax, in some cases more expensive than a legal pack of cigarettes and certainly more expensive than the untaxed cigarettes that litter the city’s black market.

The overwhelming evidence shows that nicotine pouches are safer than smoking cigarettes. Why, then, is New York pursuing a tax policy that could negatively impact health outcomes by pushing people towards cigarettes, even those purchased from the black market?  

If you walk into a bodega in the Bronx and ask for cigarettes, chances are, you can get away with paying significantly less than the legal minimum of $15.44 for a pack. In 2022, New York news station PIX11 sent cameras into bodegas across the five boroughs and found smuggled cigarettes selling for less than $10 a pack. 

The black market has only worsened since then. A Rutgers University study published last year found that only 16.6 percent of discarded cigarette packs collected across the city bore a proper New York City tax stamp, suggesting five out of six cigarettes smoked in New York City are smuggled to avoid some of the highest cigarette taxes in the country. Amid this thriving illicit market, Gov. Hochul’s proposed tax could create significant health consequences.

In 2025, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized Zyn and On! PLUS for sale after an extensive scientific review, finding that the products pose significantly lower risks of cancer and other tobacco-related diseases than cigarettes and can help smokers quit. Nicotine pouches contain no tobacco and produce no smoke. It’s cigarette smoke that kills, not nicotine.

The American Cancer Society has documented that the South Bronx and North and Central Brooklyn are home to the city’s highest concentrations of tobacco retail outlets and its highest smoking rates. New York’s own data show smoking is most prevalent among adults earning under $25,000 a year and Medicaid enrollees. These are the people who would benefit most from switching from cigarettes to safer, lower-cost nicotine products. 

Before the tax, a low-income smoker switching from a pack-a-day black market cigarettes to eight to 12 pouches a day can save up to $2,100 a year. If New York’s proposed tax on nicotine pouches is passed, those savings evaporate. Depending on where prices land, a heavy pouch user could be paying nearly $900 more per year for pouches than for untaxed cigarettes at the same bodega counter. For the most price-sensitive smokers, the financial incentive to choose a safer product disappears or inverts.

Perhaps these would be risks more worth considering if New York were seeing sky-high youth use of nicotine pouches, and the tax would slash those numbers. But youth use of all nicotine products is at a historic low. The latest National Youth Tobacco Survey, released in March, puts current nicotine pouch use among high schoolers at 2.3 percent.

Zyn has been on the market for over a decade. The FDA specifically evaluated underage appeal as part of its Zyn and On! PLUS authorization process and determined the product would not drive widespread youth uptake. The youth crisis that might be used to try to justify taxing nicotine pouches like cigarettes does not exist.

The projected revenue from the tax is $44 million a year when fully implemented. While it is a major tax for individual consumers, it is a small amount in a $260 billion state budget. The biggest public health cost is reducing the incentive for the city’s poorest smokers in the Bronx, in Brownsville, in Bushwick, and elsewhere to switch from cigarettes to a safer product. 

When announcing legislation to protect New Yorkers’ access to vaccines, Gov. Hochul said, “Our public health policies should be guided by science, not politics.” She is right and could add that public health policies shouldn’t be guided by a desire for short-term state revenue grabs at the expense of low-income New Yorkers and public health.

The data is clear: A steep tax on nicotine pouches could bolster the black market and make New York less healthy.

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