What is Snuff and Chewing or Spit Tobacco?

There are two types of smokeless tobacco––snuff and chewing tobacco.

Snuff, a finely ground or shredded tobacco, is packaged as dry, moist, or in sachets (tea bag–like pouches). Typically, the user places a pinch or dip between the cheek and gum.

Chewing tobacco is available in loose leaf, plug (plug–firm and plug–moist), or twist forms, with the user putting a wad of tobacco inside the cheek. Smokeless tobacco is sometimes called "spit" or "spitting" tobacco because people spit out the tobacco juices and saliva that build up in the mouth.

Who Uses Snuff or Spit Tobacco?

In the United States, the 2000 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, which was conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, reported the following statistics:

An estimated 7.6 million Americans age 12 and older (3.4 percent) had used smokeless tobacco in the past month.

Smokeless tobacco use was most common among young adults ages 18 to 25.

Men were 10 times more likely than women to report using smokeless tobacco (6.5 percent of men age 12 and older compared with 0.5 percent of women).

In 1986, one surprising dental related study conducted by the U.S. Centers of Disease Control found that 17 percent of five-year-old girls and 10 percent of five-year-old boys in Alaska used smokeless tobacco. Further, they had been using it for an average of about a year. At that time, about 14 states still permitted children to buy snuff or spit tobacco.

In 1998, a legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies included language which prohibited tobacco companies from taking “any action, directly or indirectly, to target youth . . . in the advertising, promotion or marketing of tobacco products." However, since the settlement, the tobacco companies have increased their cigarette marketing expenditures by 125 percent to a record $15.1 billion a year, or $41.5 million a day, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Much of this marketing is said to be targeted at kids.

On November 16, 2004, Matthew L. Myers President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, spoke out against the tobacco industries’ latest marketing ploys he says are meant to enlist youth to use their newly designed candy and coffee flavored tobacco products. He emphasized how and where the new youth-appealing tobacco products are being marketed.

“In the latest versions of its candy-flavored cigarettes, R.J. Reynolds has introduced Camel “Winter Blends” with flavors including “Warm Winter Toffee” and “Winter Mocha Mint.” Ads for these cigarettes are appearing in magazines with significant youth readership such as Rolling Stone, Glamour, Cosmopolitan and Elle,” Mr. Myers said.

“RJR’s online ads urge visitors to “Celebrate the wonder of Camel’s Winter Blends. Whether you’re skiing down the slopes or cuddling in a cabin.” In fact, it would be more accurate to describe these candy-flavored cigarettes as an invitation to “cuddle up with cancer,” said Mr. Myers.

The U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company was then marketing spit tobacco with flavors including berry blend, mint, wintergreen, apple blend, vanilla and cherry.

The company’s defense? Lots of adults like tobacco with flavoring in it.

Now let’s fast forward to 2005 and 2006.

In 2005, a Harvard School of Public Health found that tobacco companies had not given up recruiting youth as their new smokers, snuff and spit tobacco users; they had just changed tactics.

“Internal research by the tobacco industry showed manufacturers that they could capitalize on youths' attraction to candy flavors. They used innovative product technology, such as a flavor pellet embedded in one company's cigarette filters, to deliver fruit and liqueur flavors. . . . Fruit and candy flavors were also added to smokeless tobacco products, cigars and cigarette rolling papers,” said the study.

Carrie Carpenter, lead author of the study and a research analyst at HSPH, stated, "Flavored cigarettes can promote youth smoking initiation and help young occasional smokers to become daily smokers by reducing or masking the natural harshness and taste of tobacco smoke and increasing the acceptability of a toxic product."

Finally, in 2006, Massachusetts complained to the attorney general about flavored cigarettes violating the earlier Master Settlement --- the first state to do so. Its complaint was supported by the Harvard School of Public Health Study.

On October 11, 2006, in a settlement with the Attorney Generals of 38 states, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company agreed to end the sale of candy, fruit, and alcohol-flavored cigarettes.

Unfortunately, many companies throughout the world are now flavoring tobacco products of all kinds with chocolate, mint, fruit and candy flavors. In addition, online companies pushing hookah smoking use their use of flavors to elicit sales. I can’t help but wonder what Sean Marsee would say about these actions.