Should i try snus

Indeed, we would support steps to make both more available. In most countries, the only clean forms of nicotine available are low-dose medicinal replacement products that are unattractive to social users. Unfortunately, higher-dose recreational nicotine products will encounter substantial difficulties in gaining access to new markets because of irrational regulation that is more stringent for pharmaceutical nicotine and snus than for smoked tobacco.

As a recreational tobacco product, snus may seem to smokers like a more natural substitute for cigarettes than clean nicotine preparations. Diversion of funding and human resources from other tobacco control strategies to snus promotion is certainly a concern. But so too is the effort invested by some in the tobacco control community to actively opposing snus use and misleadingly claiming that snus use is as harmful as tobacco smoking.

This energy could be better invested in arguing for better regulation of all tobacco products and for lower taxes on snus and clean nicotine products to enable them to more successfully compete with cigarettes among current tobacco users.

Gartner and Hall speak of the virtues of inveterate smokers switching to snus, implying that there is an intransigent hard core of smokers. Yet the size of this group is constantly shrinking. Quit rates in nations with comprehensive tobacco control programs are accelerating, and not declining.

So whose interests will be served by diverting potential quitters into snus, particularly when tobacco marketing is already explicitly using snus promotion to promote cigarettes? We grant that indoor smoking bans were premised on reducing harm to non-smokers. But such bans have had enormous collateral benefits for smokers themselves, by stimulating them to quit.

Indeed smoking bans have been widely appreciated by a large majority of smokers. Again, whose interests would be served by subverting the beneficial effect of smoking bans? We note that Gartner and Hall call for a regulatory scheme to safeguard against the snus industry from appealing specifically to teens by using flavouring, alluring packaging, and teen marketing. But such schemes may take decades to implement, particularly when industry is likely to resist such regulations.

While these are being negotiated, smoking prevalence will continue to fall. In nations with high smoking prevalence, the argument for snus is more compelling, but there is nothing preventing it being marketed now in, for example, China. Yet smokeless tobacco has never taken off in any nation without a smokeless cultural tradition.

So we reiterate: smokeless tobacco has low appeal for the overwhelming majority of the world's smokers. There are profound risks in letting tobacco industry tigers off their leash to use snus to subvert the hard-won provisions of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control—provisions that include a ban on all tobacco advertising. Such a ban has already been achieved in some nations, but not in the US, from where much of the enthusiasm for snus now comes.

Background to the Debate The tobacco control community is divided on whether or not to inform the public that using oral, smokeless tobacco Swedish snus is less hazardous to health than smoking tobacco. Abbreviations: THR, tobacco harm reduction. Coral Gartner and Wayne Hall's Viewpoint: Smokers Who Switch to Snus Reduce Their Health Risks Over the past 40 years, high taxes on cigarettes, advertising bans, and restrictions on smoking have almost halved adult rates of cigarette smoking in Australia and the United States [ 1 , 2 ].

Impact on Tobacco Use by Youth Many critics are understandably concerned that the tobacco industry will use snus to promote nicotine use among adolescents and young adults. Aggregate Effects on Public Health Critics of snus argue that its promotion may reduce overall tobacco-related disease in current smokers at the cost of increasing tobacco use in the population.

Effects on Other Tobacco Control Policies Critics also contend that increased snus use would reduce smoking cessation because smokers who would otherwise quit due to the inconvenience of smoking bans will use snus when smoking is not allowed and smoke when smoking is allowed.

Public Health Paternalism Smokers have an ethical right to be accurately informed by public health officials about THR products. Conclusion Tobacco smokers who switch to snus will reduce the risks of their tobacco use. Culturally Unique? Communicating Benefits There would be little point in making snus available if its benefits could not be actively communicated to potential users.

Dual Use Snus enthusiasts in the public health community focus on the potential of snus to take people away from smoking. Coral Gartner and Wayne Hall's Response to Simon Chapman and Becky Freedman's Viewpoint The health community should beware of over-estimating the potential public health impact of snus.

Simon Chapman and Becky Freeman's Response to Coral Gartner and Wayne Hall's Viewpoint Gartner and Hall speak of the virtues of inveterate smokers switching to snus, implying that there is an intransigent hard core of smokers. References 1. Regulating tobacco. Oxford: Oxford University Press. World Health Organization Guidelines for controlling and monitoring the tobacco epidemic.

Geneva: World Health Organization. Washington D. Accessed 31 May Nicotine Tob Res 4: S—S View Article Google Scholar 5. Thorax — View Article Google Scholar 6. Winn DM Epidemiology of cancer and other systemic effects associated with the use of smokeless tobacco. Adv Dent Res — View Article Google Scholar 7.

E-pub 9 May Participants lost to follow-up had higher prevalence of family members smoking and parental divorce than those in the study population, which may be indicators of lower socioeconomic status among non-participants [ 20 ]. A higher prevalence of smoking was found among those not attending follow-up, especially among the older age smokers. Corresponding differences were small for snus users and dual users.

Thus, a selection of too few, and perhaps less vulnerable smokers in our study population may have taken place.

One implication of this is possibly an underestimation of the transitions to smoking and dual use in adulthood, rather than the opposite. In other aspects, we have no reason to believe that these data would differ much from national data.

For some purposes it is a limitation with cohort-data back to —97 and — Nevertheless, even when collected a decade back in time, our data have the benefits of following the adolescents into young adulthood in a time where smoking was still prevalent and snus use started to rise Additional file 5. Norway was among the first countries to introduce new nicotine products with reduced harm potential [ 11 ]. Hence, this experience may be useful as a parallel to the recent introduction of e-cigarettes in many countries.

A small glance at the mainly smoking women in the same cohort showed nearly no increase in the prevalence of smoking from adolescence to adulthood, combined with a modest increase of snus use and dual use at low levels Additional file 1. The men in our study population had similar smoking prevalence as the women in adulthood, dual use included.

The adolescent snus users and dual users conferred a high risk of being tobacco users in young adulthood. The extensive use of snus among the young boys in our study is followed by persistent dual use and smoking into adulthood. The desired effect of snus in reducing smoking is not apparent, as tobacco use was escalating in men while fairly stable in women. This experience from a Norwegian population study reveals possible disadvantages of the access to new nicotine products. Risk and protective factors of adolescent exclusive snus users compared to non-users of tobacco, exclusive smokers and dual users of snus and cigarettes.

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Etter JF. Gateway effects and electronic cigarettes. Socio-demographic, lifestyle and health characteristics among snus users and dual tobacco users in Stockholm County, Sweden. Lindbak R. Validity of self reports in a cohort of Swedish adolescent smokers and smokeless tobacco snus users. Assessment of validity of self-reported smoking status. Health Rep. Download references. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar.

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