Snus

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Portioned snus of the Granit label.

Snus (pronounced like "snûs") is a moist powder tobacco, some call it a kind of snuff. Snus is manufactured and mainly consumed in Sweden and Norway, where it is pronounced /ˈsnʉːs/. The most usual way to consume snus is to place it beneath the upper lip, and keep it there for a time varying from a few minutes to several hours, which varies greatly from person to person. What makes Snus unique as compared to other types of smokeless tobacco is the lack of a need to expectorate (spit). Snus should be stored refrigerated to minimize the formation of nitrosamines. Many users also report that cold snus is subjectively better than warm snus.

1 Types
2 Health consequences
- 2.1 Debate among public health researchers
3 Brands and manufacturers
4 Published peer-reviewed studies
5 General media articles
6 External links
- 6.1 Discussion
- 6.2 Articles

[edit] Types

There are two main types of snus on the market:

original snus or lössnus is a loose, moist powder which can be portioned and rolled into a spherical shape with the fingertips. The end result is often referred to as a pris (pinch) or prilla or prell (slang for pris).
portionssnus, is prepackaged powder in small bags made from the same material as teabags, not unlike American Skoal Bandits. It comes in smaller quantities than the loose powder but is considered easier to handle (and expectorate) than the loose powder. And, unlike most US snuff, you do not have to spit while using it.

Swedish snus is made from air dried tobacco from various parts of the world. In earlier times tobacco for making snus used to be laid out for drying in Scania and Mälardalen. Later Kentucky tobaccos were used. The ground tobacco is mixed with water, salt, sodium carbonate and aroma and is prepared through heating, generally via steam. Moist snus contain more than 50% water, and the average use of snus in Sweden is approximately 800 grams (16 units) per person each year. 14% (900,000 people) of the adult population in Sweden uses snus.^{[citation needed]} Unlike American-sold oral tobacco, snus has not gone through a fermentation process.

Snus is sold mainly in Sweden and Norway, but can be found in outlets in various other countries frequented by Scandinavian tourists like Murmansk in Russia and other Russian Border Towns (Norwegian Border) (with the notable exception of countries in the EU; see below). It is sold in small tins, which in the earlier years were made of porcelain, wood, silver or gold, at the time of writing portion snus comes in usually plastic tins of 24g, while loose snus is mostly sold in compressed paper tins with plastic lids, at 50g.

Portioned snus is most commonly sold in three different variants, namely mini, normal and maxi/large. The weights may vary, but the most sold snus labels share their weight. Mini portions weigh 0.5g, with 20 pieces per tin. Normal - or standard - portions weigh 1g, with 24 portions per tin, and maxi portions weigh 1.7g, with 17 pieces per tin.

The price for the 50g product is approximately €2.50 in Sweden and €7.50 in Norway, this is however subject to change in Sweden as of 2007 due to a raised tobacco tax, and the estimated price raise is about €1.30.

The total production of Swedish snus, mainly for the Scandinavian market, has been reported to be in excess of 300 million units per year. After the Norwegian government in June 2004 implemented a strict indoor smoking ban in public places, sales of snus skyrocketed, and several new variants of the product were put on the Norwegian market. When the Swedish government did the same thing in June 2005, sales of snus increased dramatically.

On June 11, 2006, Reynolds Tobacco announced that it would be test marketing Camel brand snus in Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas, by the end of the month. The product would be manufactured in Sweden, in conjunction with British American Tobacco, manufacturers of BAT snus. [1]

As of December, 2006, Reynolds Tobacco has begun a test campaign of Camel brand snus, releasing samples of snus to Camel members to test and rate at http://www.snuscamel.com/. It is currently only available for purchase in Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas.

A notable and recent addition to the range, although not as commonly available, is the Montecristo brand, which uses Cuban tobacco and has a very distinct taste and aroma.

[edit] Health consequences

Since snus is not intended nor recommended for inhalation, it does not affect the lungs like cigarettes do, although it does contain more nicotine than cigarettes. Because it is steam-cured, rather than fire-cured like smoking tobacco or other chewing tobacco, it contains lower concentrations of nitrosamines and other carcinogens that form from the partially anaerobic heating of proteins; 2.8 parts per mil for Ettan brand compared to as high as 127.9 parts per mil in American brands, according to a study by the State of Massachusetts Health Department. The World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledges that Swedish men have the lowest rate of lung cancer in Europe, partly due to the low tobacco smoking rate, but does not argue for substituting snus for smoking, citing that the effects of snus still remain unclear. Since the level of carcinogens in snus is not zero, however, it still poses some increased risk for oral cancer, however small.

The European Union banned the sale of snus in 1992, after a 1985 WHO study concluded that "oral use of snuffs of the types used in North America and western Europe is carcinogenic to humans", but a WHO committee on tobacco has also acknowledged that evidence is inconclusive regarding health consequences for snus consumers. Only Sweden and EFTA-member Norway are exempt from this ban. A popular movement during the run-up to the 1994 referendum for Sweden's EU membership made the exemption of EU's criminalization of snus a part of the membership treaty.

Recent actions by many European governments to limit the use of cigarettes has led to calls to lift the ban on snus as it is generally considered to be less harmful than cigarette smoke, both to the user and surroundings.

[edit] Debate among public health researchers

There is some debate among public health researchers over the use of "safer" tobacco or nicotine delivery systems, generally dividing along two lines of thought. Most researchers presently are of the "abstinence" belief, believing that no form of tobacco or nicotine use is acceptable or safe, and should be minimized among the population. A growing minority (primarily in the European Union and Canada) believes in "harm reduction," where the belief is generally that, while it should remain a goal to reduce addiction to nicotine in the population as a whole, the reduction of harm to the health of those who choose to use nicotine should override the need to reduce overall nicotine addiction. For example, some research[2] available today shows that snus use reduces or eliminates the risk of cancers that afflict other users of tobacco products such as "chewing tobacco" (the type primarily used in the United States and Canada, created in a process similar to cigarette tobacco) and cigarettes. It is hypothesized that the widespread use of snus by Swedish men (estimated at 30% of Swedish male ex-smokers, possibly because it is much cheaper than cigarettes), displacing tobacco smoking and other varieties of snuff, is responsible for the incidence of tobacco-related mortality in men being significantly lower in Sweden than any other European country; in contrast, since women are much less likely to use snus, their rate of tobacco-related deaths in Sweden is similar to that in other European countries. There is an increase in the prevalence of hypertension in Snus users, so the health effects are not all positive, however.

Snus is clearly much less harmful than other tobacco products; according to Kenneth Warner, director of the University of Michigan Tobacco Research Network,

"The Swedish government has studied this stuff to death, and to date, there is no compelling evidence that it has any adverse health consequences. ... Whatever they eventually find out, it is dramatically less dangerous than smoking."

Opponents of snus sales maintain that, nevertheless, even the low nitrosamine levels in snus cannot be completely risk free, but snus proponents point out that inasmuch as snus is used as a substitute for smoking or a means to quit smoking, the net overall effect is positive, similar to the effect of nicotine patches, for instance.

In addition, rather obviously, this eliminates any exposure to "second-hand smoke", further reducing possible harm to other non-tobacco users. This is seen by public health advocates who believe in "harm reduction" as a reason for recommending snus in addition to other nicotine replacement therapies rather than continued use of cancer-causing nicotine delivery systems.

This does not, however, eliminate any harm to health caused by the nicotine itself. Current research focuses on possible long-term effects on blood pressure, and possible risk of cancer of the pancreas due to the nicotine delivered by snus usage. Nicotine stimulates the gastrointestinal tract's production of cholecystokinin, which stimulates pancreatic growth and may be implicated in pancreatic cancer; but thus far the evidence specifically implicating snus is only suggestive. [3]