U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company

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The U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company (formerly United States Tobacco Company) has been manufacturing dipping tobacco for over one hundred years. It is a subsidiary of UST Inc.

Its corporate headquarters are in Greenwich, Connecticut and it maintains manufacturing facilities in Nashville, Tennessee, Franklin Park, Illinois, and Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

Copenhagen and Skoal are the company's leading brands, and each represent more than USD$1 Billion of retail sales. It also sells Rooster, Red Seal, and Husky brands.

Skoal offers various flavors:

• Long Cut: Wintergreen, Mint, Spearmint, Straight, Cherry, Berry Blend, Apple Blend, Classic, Peach Blend, Vanilla, Frost (discontinued), Key (limited market), Winter Blend (pre-frost/discontinued).
• Fine Cut: Wintergreen, Straight.
• Bandits: Wintergreen, Mint.
• Pouches: Wintergreen, Mint, Apple, and Berry Blend.

Fine Cut has always been sold in Tin cans. Long Cut was marketed in plastic tins until the early 2000's. Until recently, the corresponding colors would match the plastic base on Long Cut. All have been changed to black.

Skoal is one of the first moist tobacco manufactures to have created a product known as the "pouch", marketed as "Skoal Bandits". This product has a small amount of tobacco put in pouches made of a thin material, resembling a tiny tea bag.

Skoal and Copenhagen both offer pouch products, containing approximately three times that of the Skoal Bandits.

For quite some time smokeless tobacco was considered a safe alternative to cigarettes, but was found to include many cancer causing carcinogens itself. In 1986 the US Surgeon General required all smokeless tobacco sold in the US to carry a warning label.

Free nicotine is the nicotine present in tobacco which is readily available to be absorbed into the blood stream. The higher the levels, the more the nicotine dosage. It has been said that the average user of Copenhagen snuff ingests an equivalent amount of free nicotine a day as someone who smokes 3 packs of Marlboro reds each day. It is a very addictive habit that can cause cancer, heart conditions, tooth loss, gum disease, and stomach disorders. ^{[citation needed]}