It’s not every day that we speak kindly of FDA’s perspective on the First Amendment here at Washington Legal Foundation. But some huzzahs are due last week’s approval of 20 ZYN pouches as “modified risk tobacco products.” As Philip Morris International (PMI) noted, these are the first such “orders to be granted for nicotine pouches and mean the products may be marketed with the claim; ‘Using ZYN instead of cigarettes puts you at the lower risk of mouth cancer, heart disease, lunch cancer, stroke, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis.’”

This is truly welcome news. Despite widespread understanding of the health risks from smoking, there’s long been a misunderstanding where those risks come from. Nicotine, while habit forming, isn’t a carcinogen—a basic fact that even most physicians don’t know. Switching to nicotine pouches from cigarette smoking decidedly reduces cancer risk and limits other health hazards. In a world of trade-offs, if you must consume nicotine, products like ZYN are a far better route to take than lighting up a garden-variety smokable.

One reason why the “nicotine-itself-causes-cancer” misinformation has proven so resilient is because most Americans don’t pay attention to findings in medical journals. They do, of course, pay attention to ads—that’s why advertising works. So it’s great that FDA’s order means PMI will finally be able to tout ZYN’s risk-reduction benefits vis-à-vis other tobacco products. Hopefully this is just the first step in correcting the public’s conflation of nicotine (addictive but not cancer-causing) with combustible tobacco (carcinogenic).

But it’s a constitutional shame that Philip Morris International had to undergo an onerous regulatory review process—it took years—to distribute this truthful and non-misleading information in the first place. The FDA pre-approval process isn’t voluntary—it’s mandatory. If PMI hadn’t secured an order permitting it to speak, it would have been unlawful for it promote the relative benefits of ZYN while it sold the product. That kind of prior restraint is hard to square with the First Amendment, which stands forthrightly against government censorship of all stripes.

And, of course, FDA’s approval here contrasts dramatically with the agency’s forthcoming efforts to crack down on the advertising of life-saving prescription drugs. Secretary Kennedy and the FDA he oversees have made no secret that they want direct-to-consumer drug ads off the airwaves. Just as Americans stand to benefit from receiving correct information about nicotine risks, they also have a right to receive useful information about legal, available, commercial products.

So cheers for FDA’s authorizations, absolutely. But, with some apologies to Irving Kristol, we’ll limit the number of cheers to no more than two.