What’s that funny new tobacco stuff called SNUS??
While doing our late-night munchie shopping at our local supermarket i.e. “garage shop”, we spotted these slick little tins with Peter Stuyvesant logos on them sitting in a neat little fridge (fridge?). The friendly guy behind the counter told us they were “tea-bags that you suck”… well he wasn’t far off:
SNUS is a brand new new brand of tobacco just introduced by Peter Stuy…
vesant to our shelves – it stems from that land of IKEA and blond bombshells, Sweden, where, according to Stuyvesant, more Swedes choose SNUS than ciggies.
Here’s the beat from swedish-snus.com and the instructions pack:
Snus is a pasteurised tobacco product that looks like a little teabag. It is kept in fridges, you take a pouch out your tin, put it behind your upper lip and let it ‘TINGLE’. Some people keep it in their mouths for up to 30 minutes.
Swedish snus/snuff is a ground tobacco product dating from the late 1700s.
Approximately 1,000,000 people in Sweden use snus – 90% are men and 10% are women.
According to an article on Ebusinessforum SNUS is banned in many EU countries but will be tested on the SA market –
“[Snus] is prohibited in other EU countries, but BAT head of science and regulation Christopher Procter showed slides from Action on Smoking and Health (Ash), the anti-tobacco group, that seemed to show it was far less harmful. He quoted Ash saying that snus was over a hundred times less harmful than cigarettes and that the law banning it was contradictory and illogical.
Asked whether he thought that snus would be legalised in the EU he replied: ‘There’s not a cat’s chance in hell.”
BAT said it would launch snus in South Africa, branded with its Peter Stuyvesant brand, and test it there for a year. South Africa has an advertising ban, so Mr Procter said that snus would have to come with instructions. It also has to be kept in special fridges.”
According to our favourite online people’s encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA:
“Since snus is not intended nor recommended for inhalation, it does not affect the lungs like cigarettes do, although it does contain more nicotine than cigarettes, and might pose a risk for oral cancer or cardiovascular disease.
The World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledges that Swedish men have the lowest rate of lung cancer in Europe, partly due to the low tobacco smoking rate, but does not argue for substituting snus for smoking, citing that the effects of snus still remain unclear.
The European Union banned the sale of snus in 1992, after a 1985 WHO study concluded that “oral use of snuffs of the types used in North America and western Europe is carcinogenic to humans”, but a WHO committee on tobacco has also acknowledged that evidence is inconclusive regarding health consequences for snus consumers.”
Has anyone tried this stuff? Let us know what you think!
