Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with

Skeptical Sunday co-host writer and researcher and microphone breather Nick Pell. On the Jordan

Harbinger show, we decode the story of secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people

and turned their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and

those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker,

and during the week, we have long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies

to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, and performers on Sundays, though it's skeptical

Sunday, a rotating guest co-host and I are going to break down a topic you may have

never thought about and debunk common misconceptions about that topic, such as why tipping makes no

sense, chemtrails also make no sense, ban foods, GMOs, toothpaste, crystal healing, diet pills,

self-help, cults, bottled water, and more. If you're new to the show or you want to tell

your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on persuasion and negotiation, psychology and disinformation, junk science, crime and cults, and more. That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today on the show, if you haven't been living under a rock, you've seen people sticking little packets of nicotine into their mouths. They go by different brand names, but the most common one is Zinn. Like Band-Aid and Kleenex, Zin has basically just become the name for a little packet of nicotine that you put under your lip. Unless otherwise specified in this episode, by the way, when we say zin, we just mean nicotine pouch. But people generally fall on either side of one extreme about zins. Either these little flavored packets are just kicking your addiction from one side of the street to another and seducing kids with fruit and mint flavors, or they're the second coming of Jesus and the best thing you can put into your mouth, chock full of vitamins and minerals and necessary for a successful and fulfilling life.

So what's the real story behind these addictive little packages that seem to have popped up

absolutely everywhere over the last few years, from Silicon Valley startups to Sunbelt

construction sites? Here today to help me tackle this topic in the Nick of time as writer

and researcher Nick

Pell. As anyone who is listening to any of Nick's episodes knows, he is a man, well, you love

nicotine, right? I do, and I think that it's worth discussing the health benefits of nicotine.

Okay, so Nick thinks that smoking is good for you. I don't. I do, however, think that we

lost something important, socially speaking, when everyone

quit smoking, a really small example is the loss of one-on-one mentorship time with your boss,

and people can laugh, but it's a real thing. I learned some of the most important professional

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