Smokeless Tobacco
Smokeless (chewing) tobacco has been making a gradual resurgence in the United States for the past 20 years. Advertisers have presented smokeless tobacco as a healthier alternative to smoking, using the macho image of tobacco-chewing cowboys and athletes to promote their products. Apparently these advertisements have been effective, as indicated by an increase of 52 percent in sales of smokeless tobacco since 1978. It is estimated that 7 million to 11 million Americans, mostly males, use smokeless tobacco.
Smokeless tobacco comes in three forms: loose leaf, plugs, and snuff. Chewing tobacco may be packaged as loose-leaf tobacco, which is sold in a pouch. The user places the tobacco between the cheek and the gum, and when a certain amount of tobacco juice and saliva are accumulated in the mouth, it is spit out. Chewing tobacco also can be found as plug tobacco, which is a solid brick form of tobacco. The user cuts off a piece with a knife and chews it, and again, spits it out. Snuff is a finely ground tobacco, sold in cans, that is put on the back of the hand and sniffed through the nose. It also can be placed between the cheek and the gum.
Despite its macho appeal to men, few women find tobacco chewing attractive. Users of smokeless tobacco may not experience the effects of carbon monoxide, but the substance has plenty of other harmful effects, including:
• damage to the soft and hard tissues in the mouth
• excessive abrasion of tooth surfaces
• presence of nitrosonornicotine, a cancer-causing agent
• increase in heart rate and blood pressure
• development of leukoplakia, a disease that results in thick, white patches on the cheek, tongue, and other parts of the mouth
• cancer of the inner lining of the cheek
• suppressed immune response
• increase in the number of dental cavities
• inflammation of the gums
• cancers of the pharynx, esophagus, bladder, and pancreas
• darkened teeth and bad breath
Tags: chewing tobacco, chewing tobacco harmful effects, Smokeless Tobacco, smokeless tobacco harmful effects
Posted in Avoiding Risky Behavior
Comments (1)
Correction Snuff comes in four forms.
While I applaud your efforts to curb the use of oral tobacco, I would like to point out that not all smokeless tobacco is for oral use and Toque Snuff a nasal snuff has been proven to be 99% safer than smoking.
Snuff is safer and more successful for stopping smoking than any other Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT). Success rates as a percentage of smokers who do not restart; snuff 76%, patches 17% and gum 12%.
With no known harm ever being recorded for English nasal snuff, and the number of educated smokers switching to less harmful nasal snuff rising every day, it is reprehensible of the researchers of this article not to include English nasal snuff, the fastest growing NRT in America. This is madness allowing oral tobacco users who are unable to give-up to die by not informing them that there is another form of safer tobacco, and is tant amount to murder. If every oral tobacco user in America switched to Toque snuff we would save 7,500 people a year (7500 is the average number of Americans who die from oral tobacco each year).
Professor Martin Jarvis, of Cancer Research UK: says that the health implications surrounding snuff use are significantly lower than smoking. “Studies show that the health hazards surrounding snuff are much less than cigarettes and the risk is approximately one per cent compared with the risks associated with smoking,” he explains. “The reason for this is that by smoking you are setting fire to the products which causes their combustion. Snuff doesn’t have the combustion products which are carcinogenic and all the user is getting is the nicotine.”
The late Dr Michael Russell, father of tobacco addiction research:
“Snuff could save more lives and avoid more ill-health than any other preventive measure likely to be available to developed nations well into the 21st century”. “Switching from cigarettes to snuff could have enormous health benefits”. Snuffing has two major advantages… Firstly there are no products of combustion such as tar, carbon monoxide and oxides of nitrogen. Secondly it cannot be inhaled into the lungs, which eliminates any risk of lung cancer.”
Professor (Sir) Robert Peto, Oxford University, World renowned epidemiologist on smoking:
“If this or some other such habit were to become widespread and did to any substantial extent replace smoking (particularly of cigarettes) then the net effect would be likely to be a reduction in tobacco-induced mortality.