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Camel Snus in the Smoke-Free Tent
The Winston-Salem Journal reports that R.J. Reynolds is expanding its test marketing of Camel Snus, a Swedish-style oral snuff that comes in little pouches that users place between the lip and gum. Bill Godshall, executive director of SmokeFree Pennsylvania and one of the few anti-smoking activists who has endorsed smokeless tobacco as a harm-reducing alternative to cigarettes, welcomes the move:
Reynolds' expansion of its test market for snus will provide millions of smokers with less-hazardous alternatives to cigarettes, which is welcom[e] news. It makes sense for Reynolds to gradually expand its test market for snus, as it's a new and entirely different product than cigarettes....Although smokeless tobacco is just as addictive as cigarettes, and should not be used by those who are not addicted to nicotine, cigarettes are about 100 times deadlier than smokeless-tobacco products.
Representing the orthodox quit-or-die position is Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids:
Every new city RJR picked has a clean-air law. This is about RJR doing everything they can to keep people from quitting.
Remember when anti-tobacco activists used to pretend that smoking bans were aimed at protecting bystanders from secondhand smoke? In case you're worried about secondhand saliva, R.J. Reynolds notes that its snus "does not require the consumer to spit."
Godshall co-authored an article about smokeless tobacco that appeared in the December 2006 Harm Reduction Journal. In my column last week, I noted that FDA regulation of tobacco products could impair competition between cigarettes and smokeless tobacco.
|4.14.08 @ 12:16PM|#
I prefer the real stuff from Sweden. I will say this, though-Snus is effective at eliminating the nicotine jones and everything I've read indicates that it's vastly, vastly less dangerous than cigarettes.
|4.14.08 @ 12:23PM|#
Snus is pretty good. The stuff from Sweden, anyway, but it's
damn hard to find here in the states (I've ordered it from
overseas). I'm going to give this Camel stuff a try and see what
it's like if I can find some.
I will try to not exhale poisonous tobacco fumes in anyone's
general direction.
Guy Montag|4.14.08 @ 12:26PM|#
So, with these imitation Skoal Bandits optional spitting is supposed to be a feature?
javier|4.14.08 @ 12:31PM|#
I agree with Guy,
I chew and it seems that without the spitting all we have is
nicorette. I am not familiar with snus at all though.
|4.14.08 @ 12:39PM|#
Remember when anti-tobacco activists used to pretend that
smoking bans were aimed at protecting bystanders from secondhand
smoke?
They fuckin' swore to it. Puritanical, lying, busybody assholes is
the term that comes immediately to mind when I read the unmitigated
bullcrap that comes out of people like Matthew Myers' mouthes.
Brian|4.14.08 @ 12:44PM|#
It's the war on drugs mentality. Tobacco is bad because it's bad. So is alcohol.
Episiarch|4.14.08 @ 12:44PM|#
Just like the crazier gun-controllers hate guns, the crazier anti-smokers hate tobacco. Making it safer is meaningless, they want it gone.
|4.14.08 @ 1:08PM|#
"Remember when anti-tobacco activists used to pretend that
smoking bans were aimed at protecting bystanders from secondhand
smoke?"
Here in Santa Cruz CA, the county supervisors passed an ordinance
forbidding the possession or use of any tobacco products in county
parks. Not being a tobacco user myself, I wrote to my County
Supervisor in protest, saying that while I could understand (though
not agree with) a ban on tobacco smoking in the parks, the ban of
possession or use of any tobacco product was just
unacceptable.
The Supervisor replied, declaring that we would just have to "agree
to disagree" on the issue, citing the county's huge expense for
"tobacco-related medical care." So the real answer here is that,
because the socialists (calling themselves "progressives") in our
area decided that it would be "compassionate" to foot the bill for
some people's health problems, they have now "compassionately"
decided to reduce everyone's freedom of behavior as the price of
that "compassion."
This is, of course, the inevitable end point of making the
government responsible for expenses that are in large part
determined by human decisions. Eventually, government must act to
constrain the range of those decisions, in order to "cut costs." So
much the better if the cost-cutting efforts are also consistent
with the prevailing ideological orthodoxy.
By the way, those same Supervisors recently voted themselves a
hefty raise. I guess concocting their local form of petty tyranny
is hard work, and we need to attract the best and brightest to the
task. I am so looking forward to the chance to oust everyone who
voted for this overreaching anti-tobacco law, not to mention the
obscene salary raise in a time of economic retrenchment for those
who don't have the advantage of setting their own salaries.
Erÿk Boston, Pre-Esq.|4.14.08 @ 1:41PM|#
The lack of spitting is a real safety feature since the greatest health risk from smokeless tobacco is a broken jaw resulting from accidentally spitting in someone else soda prior to their drinking from it.
Taktix®|4.14.08 @ 1:46PM|#
Remember when anti-tobacco activists used to pretend that
smoking bans were aimed at protecting bystanders from secondhand
smoke?
Memories...
|4.14.08 @ 1:50PM|#
The lack of spitting is a real safety feature since the
greatest health risk from smokeless tobacco is a broken jaw
resulting from accidentally spitting in someone else soda prior to
their drinking from it.
Ugh. My freshman year of college I was on a floor with mostly
football players, all of whom seemingly chewed. There's nothing
more disgusting than finding a plastic cup or Pepsi bottle
half-filled with tobacco spit sitting in the hallway, or on top of
the water fountain, or on the table in the lounge, etc. I'd love to
see this stuff replace chew for that reason alone...
|4.14.08 @ 2:04PM|#
About 30 years ago, flummoxed as to what to do with all those
pesky stems and seeds, we came upon the solution of crushing them
up, mixing them in with Skoal or Copenhagen, and floating through
baseball and track practice with a mild contact buzz (our school
anti-tobacco "pledge" only applied to the smoked kind; you could
dip on campus, just not during class).
On a dare one of my friends once drank a cup a of his tobacco spit
(we were chewing Red Man at the time, so it already had the smell
and consistency of cough syrup). He added about two spoonfuls of
sugar to the cup, knocked it back, and started vomiting about 2
minutes later. He puked for about an hour, as I recall, and as he
lay curled in the fetal position clutching his gut, we all laughed
our asses off and spit tobacco juice on him. Did I mention we were
drunk? Ah, youth......
|4.14.08 @ 2:14PM|#
50 years ago we spelled it snoose....
Can I carry concealed in Santa Cruz parks....?
|4.14.08 @ 2:27PM|#
I tried some of the Camel stuff when it first hit the Dallas test market. The Swedish stuff is much better. I order mine from www.buysnus.com. Great service, and their postal delivery option is cheap and fast.
|4.14.08 @ 3:00PM|#
Full disclosure: I work for a tobacco company, but I am NOT
speaking on behalf of the company or advocating tobacco use in any
way. I'm just a regular reader of Reason like anyone else
here.
I smoke hand-rolled cigarettes (with filters), because they are
greatly less expensive than machine-made cigarettes, which are
taxed to death, and because hand-rolled cigs taste much, much
better. I intend to quit smoking and switch to snus.
OK, Swedish-style snus doesn't make you spit; it doesn't create
hardly any saliva at all -- it is unlike other smokeless tobaccos,
e.g. Copenhagnen, Skoal, etc. Snus is not dip and should not be
compared to Skoal's pouches. The only similarity is the pouches,
yet the two products are entirely different in how they are
manufactured.
So that we are very clear, all tobacco products (snus included) are
potentially harmful, and long-term use of tobacco increases the
chance of diseases associated with tobacco. There is far less
potential for harm with snus than with smoking cigarettes.
I'm not sure if all tobacco products will be banned some day, but I
do foresee very strict legislation making it increasingly harder to
obtain. Once that happens, our nannies will have to find other
addictive substances to ban, say, for instance, coffee (caffeine).
How many people simply cannot function without 1, 2, 10 cups a day?
Hundreds of millions. Think about the chaos!
Bandito|4.14.08 @ 3:07PM|#
An old dipping friend of mine used to that dipping with Skoal Bandits is like sucking a tittie through a bra - just not as much fun.
Guy Montag|4.14.08 @ 3:17PM|#
I am dipping the long-cut Skoal right now. The bandits, or pouches are okay by me and a little neater in your mouth.
|4.14.08 @ 3:41PM|#
In my neighborhood one of the gas stations gives everyone who
buys cigarettes a packet of camel snus for free, since it
apparently isn't selling at all in Columbus, OH.
If the late-night clerk is to be believed, they can't get rid of
the stuff.
First time reader, long time c|4.14.08 @ 6:17PM|#
I've been using the Camel SNUs since they came to NYC. I like
the minty fresh ones. They're great.
I got my wife addicted, and she doesn't even smoke!
|4.14.08 @ 6:19PM|#
But the tobacco-free activists mean well, and that's all that matters.
The road to hell won't pave itself.
Guy Montag|4.15.08 @ 9:25AM|#
First time reader, long time commenter,
The chicks I date, no matter how much of that pre-programmed,
elitist, revulsion they express for smokeless tobacco, all prefer
the taste of mint Skoal on me over wintergreen.
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