By Eric Anderson

Give Gov. Jared Polis points for sticking to his guns.

Despite a healthy heaping of criticism, Polis has refused to back down from his surprising 2024 tweet expressing excitement for the selection of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary.

Polis’s iconoclastic streak is ensuring he doesn’t ride quietly into the sunset.

But when he aligns with MAHA misinformation, Polis creates a legacy that will undermine Coloradans’ health, while creating a long public health to-do list for the next governor.

Just this week, Polis again aligned himself with Kennedy by speaking out in favor of the benefits of oral nicotine pouches (ONPs) like Zyn and the state-supported Philip Morris International factory in Adams County that will produce Zyn locally.

“We were the first state to legalize marijuana, and now have over 650 dispensaries, have legalized natural medicine, and have almost 50 regulated healing centers that offer psilocybin,” Gov. Polis told The New York Times. “Of course, we want safer alternatives to smoking, like Zyn, to be in our state.”

I could spend the rest of this column unpacking the linkage he draws in two sentences between commercialized marijuana, categorizing psychedelic drugs as “medicine”, and the addiction-for-profit industry. Instead, I will focus on the tobacco/nicotine angle.

I’m so old I remember when we could agree Big Tobacco’s addiction-for-profit racket was the opposite of public health.

But Big Tobacco is always shifting shapes to keep its profits.

Remember when Kennedy appeared to slip an ONP in his mouth during Senate confirmation hearings in 2025? That set the tone on this issue.

The Times noted that this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued new guidance relaxing regulations on nicotine pouches and vapes, a week after the tobacco company Reynolds American donated $5 million to a Trump-backed super PAC. It also reported Kennedy has acknowledged using ONPs.

He doesn’t seem to see any conflict with his MAHA agenda. No processed food, but distilled nicotine is OK?

We all can agree ONPs are safer than cigarettes, which contribute to the death of up to half of long-term smokers (Imagine the pressure that puts on cigarette marketers who have to find new customers to backfill the ones they kill).

So, anything that kills fewer than half of its long-term customers is a healthier choice. That’s a very low bar (and Big Tobacco, of course, hasn’t stopped selling deadly cigarettes. They’re just diversifying into new addictive nicotine products which, not coincidentally, are boosting their valuations).

But the problem is many, many ONP users never smoked. For them, often teens and young adults, ONPs are an on-ramp to nicotine addiction, not a harm-reduction strategy.

Recently, a Philip Morris executive wrote in Colorado Politics we must “keep the conversation grounded in scientific evidence.”

So let’s look at the latest data.

The newly released Healthy Kids Colorado Survey reports in 2025, 3.4% of high school students statewide used ONPs in the past month. For male teens, it’s 4.9% — a number that seems low for anyone who is familiar with this demographic, but there is a year lag in the data in this fast-growing sector. For those over 18 in high school, it was 6.6% (tobacco is illegal to purchase for anyone under 21).

A third of high school students said it would be easy to get ONPs if they wanted them. So much for the age gates tobacco companies highlight.

Unlike smoking cessation medicine, which reduces nicotine levels over time, ONPs are ramping up nicotine levels to unprecedented highs — far beyond what’s found in cigarettes. Higher concentrations and fewer deaths mean more lifelong customers — a brilliant business strategy.

In fact, some ONP boosters present nicotine not as a health problem but as a health hack. Tech companies that depend on long-toiling employees are installing ONP vending machines in their offices to boost productivity. It’s like the office coffee machine but supercharged!

Some are even combining nicotine and caffeine. Finance and tech bros will never leave the office! It’s a dystopian novel come to life.

Here’s the problem: tobacco plants evolved to produce nicotine because it’s a natural pesticide that keeps the plants safe from insects.

Here’s what the American Lung Association says about nicotine:

“The effects of nicotine have been thoroughly studied, with researchers agreeing that nicotine is as addictive as heroin, cocaine or alcohol. When ingested, nicotine rapidly affects the entire body by increasing heart rate, blood pressure and adrenaline levels. It causes blood vessels to narrow, restricts oxygen flow and alters brain chemistry by releasing dopamine, which creates dependency. Long-term use can lead to chronic health issues, including heart disease, stroke and permanent damage to lung tissue. In addition, for people under the age of 25, nicotine has been proven to negatively affect brain development. Since the brain is not yet fully developed until that age, nicotine usage can lead to lasting cognitive and behavioral impairments, and negatively affect focus, memory and learning.”

I assume Polis, like all other lame-duck governors, is turning his attention to his legacy. He certainly will get points for doing the unexpected. But keeping analysts guessing is not necessarily a formula for good health policy. On this issue, I believe history will not treat him kindly.

Eric Anderson is a Colorado-based strategic communications consultant and former journalist in Denver, Washington and Hong Kong. His behavior-change marketing work has encompassed substance use prevention, including a focus on tobacco and other drugs, for 30 years.