The Lancet, March
1, 1980 (Extract)
A NEW AGE FOR
SNUFF?
M. J. JARVIS
C. FEYERABEND
Addiction Research
Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London; and Poisons Unit, New Cross Hospital,
London.
TOBACCO is the only
source of nicotine. For four centuries or more it has been used for chewing,
snuffing, or smoking, but no population has given up one form of tobacco
use without replacing it with another. The only time the British gave up
smoking was in the 18th century, when they switched to snuffing for almost
a hundred years. The common factor is nicotine. There is no tar or carbon
monoxide without combustion. Nicotine is absorbed through the lungs in
cigarette smoking, through the buccal mucosa in tobacco chewing, and through
the nasal mucosa in snuffing.
What about snuff? Would
it be a satisfactory alternative for dependent cigarette smokers? Snuffing
is simply a matter of inserting powdered tobacco into the nose, and thus
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, which
kills almost 30,000 British smokers a year. Would snuff provide enough
nicotine to satisfy the dependent cigarette smoker? The historical evidence
suggests that it could. We are studying the absorption of nicotine
by cigar smokers and snuff users. Preliminary findings presented here show
that the absorption of nicotine from snuff is very rapid; snuff could be
sufficiently satisfying for cigarette smokers to switch to snuffing relatively
easily.
METHODS
We measured blood-nicotine
and blood-carboxyhæmoglobin (COHb) in cigar smokers and in snuff
users.
RESULTS
Even with this form of
non-inhaled cigar smoking, nicotine absorption was initially very slow.
By contrast the absorption
from a single pinch of snuff was extremely rapid.
DISCUSSION
The rate of nicotine
absorption from snuff is very rapid. The blood-nicotine level of over 40
ng/ml matches the peak levels found in heavy cigarette smokers. Although
the snuff user does not get the puff-by-puff high nicotine boli obtained
by inhaling cigarette smokers, it takes the cigarette smoker about 10 min
to reach a peak nicotine level compared with 5 min or less for a snuff
user.
Snuff may well be a satisfactory
and acceptable substitute for cigarette smoking. In addition to its capacity
to deliver nicotine, snuff could provide many other components of the smoking
habit, such as a variety of aromas, attractive packaging, and intricate
sensorimotor rituals which add to the pleasure and social aspects of the
habit. Furthermore, it is likely to be acceptable to all social classes,
since its present limited use ranges from velvet-curtained lounges to the
depths of coal mines.
Switching from cigarettes
to snuff could have enormous health benefits. Although some problems could
arise from continued absorption of nicotine and local nasal irritation
in heavy users, the absence of tar and gases such as carbon monoxide, oxides
of nitrogen, and many other toxic combustion products, would virtually
eliminate smoking-related cancer, bronchitis, and possibly heart disease.
Also, snuff does not contaminate the atmosphere for non-users.<BR>
Our findings suggest
that a new age for snuff is a feasible alternative to cigarette smoking.
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.
As a result
of such research nasal snuff tobacco was made tax free by the British government
and remains so.
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The "Cancer Research Campaign"
wrote on 8th March 1985:
. . .
"there is no evidence of any association with cancer or other health risk
in the snuff produced in this country. For this reason, snuff
seems an entirely acceptable substitute for cigarette smoking and could
be recommended for addicted cigarette smokers since if they could substitute
snuff taking for cigarette smoking, they would greatly reduce the risk
to their health."
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A cancer research
specialist recently remarked on UK TV:
"
People smoke for the nicotine - but it's not the nicotine, it's the tar
and toxic gases that kill them. "
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Professor Martin Jarvis,
of Cancer Research UK, says that the health implications surrounding snuff
use are significantly lower than smoking. He explains:
"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, 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."
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>A paper by Clive Bates,
Director, Action on Smoking and Health, and others states:
>"For smokers that are
addicted to nicotine and cannot or will not stop, it is important that
they can take advantage of much less hazardous forms of
nicotine and tobacco,
the alternative being to quit or die and many die."
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EEC Council Directive
92/41/EEC forced snuff retailers to affix a libel to their products:
"CAUSES CANCER". However as a result of research by an
independent scientist
of the Cancer Research Centre, Heidelberg and by an independent scientist
of the University of Ulm, the EEC was caused to
modify this to ""This
tobacco-based product can be detrimental to your health and is addictive".
("This puts
snuff on a fairly level pegging with other semi-luxury products such as
wine or coffee. " -- Dr. Poeschl.
Professor
Britton of the Royal College of Physicians recently said on TV that nicotine
is no more toxic than caffeine)
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