Under the Lip vs. Into the Lungs

Today Brad Rodu, a University of Alabama oral pathologist, is scheduled to testify before a House subcommittee about his efforts to promote oral snuff as a much safer alternative to cigarette smoking. Rodu's work is interesting because it reveals a split within the anti-smoking movement between pragmatists open to "harm reduction" and moralists who insist on complete abstinence from tobacco products. Early on he was condemned by the anti-smoking establishment, but his point of view is beginning to gain support in some surprising places.