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Sated With Snuff, Swedes Take Smoking Ban in Stride
Swedish answer to cancer
Fri 22 Jul 2005
With regard to your report (13 July) on the "epidemic" of lung cancer in Scottish women, as director of the think tank Eudoxa I would like to point out the option of offering an alternative.
In Sweden, the sale of oral snuff known as "snus" has been an important part of avoiding the lung cancer issue. This is very evident in cancer statistics in Sweden, where snus is widely used among men, and there is a significantly lower incidence of lung cancer than in the rest of Europe. For women, the incidence is about equal, since they do not use snus to the same degree (although this is changing).
At present, the European Union prohibits the sale of snus outside of Sweden, but if the option was given to Scots, thousands of lung cancer cases could be avoided. There would still be addiction and other health problems. But the situation would definitely improve. Scots and Europeans deserve to get the option by lifting the ban.
Referencing the following story from Sweden, here is some food for thought!!! Snuff/Snus could become very popular for smokers and I plan to try it! This could be an alternative solution for smokers when they are forced to endure smoking ban situations. It sounds far more appealing than Nicorette gum and it won't help fill the pockets of Antis! When chewing tobacco and spittoons in public became unacceptable, the trend for people to begin smoking began......
Of course, don't expect our "health experts" to condone it. NO, NEVER! The increased use of Snus would strip the Antis of their all-important power struggle to control populations and could have the effect of reducing their funding and grant incomes. Since the Antis have already been employing every possible form of social engineering to denormalize smoking, and this alternative won't fill the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry or all the "health concerned" special interest groups, it will have to labeled as BAD.
Since smoking bans have really been about money and never really been about health or "for the children", I wonder how our fanatical Antis will attempt to regulate this new development?
"Recommending snus to a smoker is a little like telling an alcoholic that it's O.K. to shift from vodka to wine," said Margaretha Haglund, who specializes in tobacco policy at the National Institute of Public Health in Stockholm.
"The health effects of snus are in dispute. No conclusive study has shown that it causes cancer, even if the W.H.O. has found that smokeless tobacco in general causes oral cancer and possibly pancreatic cancer."
Sated With Snuff, Swedes Take Smoking Ban in Stride
By IVAR EKMAN
International Herald Tribune
May 29, 2005
STOCKHOLM, May 28 - Sweden is a few days from joining the select group of European countries that have banned smoking in restaurants and bars. But unlike Ireland, where the ban upset pub owners, or Italy, where cappuccino drinkers complained about having to smoke outdoors, no one here expects the June 1 event to be met with much protest.
The main reason for this indifference is a four-letter word: snus. A moist, finely minced snuff tobacco inserted under the upper lip, snus is the Swedish alternative to cigarettes.
The substance, which is prohibited in the rest of the European Union (Sweden got an exemption when it joined in 1995), has been used widely here for almost two centuries, and has grown in popularity in recent years. More than a million Swedes use it, and as smoking is banned in eating and drinking establishments, snus (pronounced snoos) is expected to become even more popular.
"Historically, we've seen a lot of smokers switching to snus," said Sven Hindrikes, chief of Swedish Match, which made 95 percent of the almost 200 million cans of snus sold last year. "If you're not allowed to smoke in restaurants, it will have a positive effect on our sales."
Swedish Match has been preparing for two years to take advantage of the smoking ban. New custom-made refrigerators and vending machines have been offered to restaurant and bar owners, and a sleek black "snustray" has been designed to replace ashtrays. (Because snus use stimulates saliva production much less than other forms of snuff and chewing tobacco, spittoons are not being introduced.)
Blue Moon Bar, a popular nightclub in central Stockholm, is one of the places where snus is expected to replace cigarettes. A new vending machine selling snus has been put up next to the old cigarette machine, with another soon to follow, and snustrays have begun to appear on top of the bar, the manager, Olle Tejle, said.
Beyond trying to make snus more appealing, Swedish Match is promoting its relative health benefits compared with other tobacco products. "If you ask people who have stopped smoking in Sweden, the biggest group says they have used snus as the main aid in quitting," Mr. Hindrikes said. This claim appears to be backed by World Health Organization data showing that Sweden has one of the lowest levels of smoking among adults in Europe The data also show that Swedes - especially men, amon=
g whom snus use is particularly widespread - run a comparatively low risk of dying of smoking-related diseases like tracheal, bronchial and lung cancer, though per capita consumption of all forms of tobacco matches that of most of the rest of Europe.
But Swedish health care groups are hardly prepared to embrace snus. "In a sense, all things you compare with smoking unavoidably look quite healthy because it's such an extremely dangerous habit," said Margaretha Haglund, who specializes in tobacco policy at the National Institute of Public Health in Stockholm. "Recommending snus to a smoker is a little like telling an alcoholic that it's O.K. to shift from vodka to wine."
The health effects of snus are in dispute. No conclusive study has shown that it causes cancer, even if the W.H.O. has found that smokeless tobacco in general causes oral cancer and possibly pancreatic cancer.
Swedish Match maintains that the Swedish snus is less dangerous than other forms of smokeless tobacco, mainly because it contains relatively low levels of carcinogenic "tobacco-specific nitrosamine" substances.
http://www.nytimes.com/
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