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Chewing tobacco is a form of spitting tobacco and now out of fashion,
but it is much less dangerous than smoking.
Legal position
Chewing tobacco, like oral snuff, chewing tobacco cannot be sold
in New Zealand,
but can be imported for personal use. It is legal in Europe,
and hardly used at all in Sweden.
It is manufactured from loose tobacco leaves, air-cured and shredded into
flakes and treated with sweet flavoured
solutions. Men who chew tobacco for example, those working outdoors in the
southern states of the United States,
buy it in pouch form, and feel the need to spit. It is less popular than
previously. It is addictive.
Safety
Chewing tobacco In 2003 this product contained under 5 ppm dry weight of total tobacco specific nitrosamines.1
The cancer risks (mouth throat) are low or in doubt; out of 9
studies, the risk was less than doubled and only one significantly so1;
alcohol and smoking which also cause cancer of the same sites, may have
confounded the results.
Ordinary unlit smoking tobacco is much safer than smoking if
chewed, and as safe as using snuff, as cigarette tobacco is almost identical
in chemistry to oral snuff.
See www.endsmoking.org.nz/snuffregulations.htm
at Table 2 for comparison of the chemistry. Products from
South
Asia are generally not recommended, and snuff regulations are
needed to stop these products at the border. See Table 1 in the same file.
As a stop smoking aid
Chewing tobacco In the United
States, in areas where chewing tobacco
is on sale, smokers working outdoors find it useful to use during the
quitting period.
Unlit smoking tobacco
chewed. In emergency, some smokers, to quell strong cravings to smoke, chew
unlit tobacco (pouch tobacco for hand-rolling, or taken
out of manufactured cigarettes) as a stop smoking aid during the quitting
period. Swallowing the tobacco juice can cause hiccoughs. Ordinarily, most
would find nicotine gum, nasal snuff, or pouched oral snuff more pleasant.
1 Rodu B.
Smokeless tobacco and oral cancer: a review of the risks and determinants. Crit Rev Oral Biol Med 2004
15: 252-263. At Table 3, TSNA levels in American and Swedish Tobacco
Products 2003.
Dr Murray Laugesen QSO chair; Prof Ross McCormick, Sir John Scott KBE, Trish
Fraser MPH, Dr Marewa Glover, Trustees
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