In Process - Comments..

January 28, 2009 -

A few comments on article. Tobacco Road Takes a Turn to the Smokeless by Kevin Helliker, The Wall Street Journal, 1/27/2009.

Critical - no mention of children main resource exposure to these tobacco products.
In these tough economic times, it is more important than ever that we redouble efforts to care for our nation’s most precious resources: its children.
avoid the temptation of tobacco avoid nicotine addiction never able to reach their full potential..

Sales of Snus (Swedish moist snuff) have failed just about everywhere in the where it has been marketed except in Sweden and Norway. In Sweden snus has been used for over 200 years it's a tradition - part of their culture. In Norway (not an EU member) to hook kids on Snus Swedish Match produced a starter kit consisting of various Snus pouches flavored with various fruit flavors.

Sales of Camel SNUS has failed miserably in Raleigh, NC - c-store owners are having a hard time giving the stuff away. R.J. Reynolds has tried every gimmick imaginable to get people to try the stuff without success. The vast majority of results from other c-stores located in cities where the product has been marketed show simlar results. This is not only true for Camel Snus but Marlboro Snus and even in Canada with Imperial of Canada's duMariner test marketed in Edmonton and Ottawa.

Amongst some snus enthusiasts Camel Snus is looked upon as somewhat less appetizing, maybe even a bit lowbrow—compared to Swedish brands like General made by Swedish Match. Camel Snus was first made in Sweden under contract, by British American Tobacco PLC, which owns 42 percent of Reynolds American. Then it was made in the Reynolds plant in Winston-Salem. and now by Reynolds at the Conwood plant in Clarkeville, TN. Camel Snus is a R.J. Reynolds Tobacco product not Conwoods.

Camel Snus is smoke-free and spit-free but users found fault (didn't care for) with the product in that the pouch still had to be disposed off. The dissolvables that Reynolds is now starting to test market have one extra perk - fully dissolve in the mouth. For snus to be spitless the placement in mouth of the pouch is critical if the pouch is moved around or placed in a different location more saliva will be produced increasing the urge to spit.

The European Union was so concerned that snus would appeal to kids they banned the product in all countries except Sweden. Initially the small bags of tobacco were banned in Britain in 1990 after the US Smokeless Tobacco company (now owned by Altria Group, Inc.) tried to introduce sweet-flavored tobacco capsules called Skoal Bandits. The ban was supplanted by EU-wide legislation in May, 1992. The legislation prohibited the placing on the market of tobacco for oral use; the primary reason "...products for oral use will be used above all by young people, thus leading to nicotine addiction..." . (The prohibition was introduced by Directive 92/41/EEC amending Directive 89/622/EEC.)

Certain public health professionals want inveterate (hard-nose, long established, deep-rooted) cigarette smokers to switch to Snus. But is this realistic - will inveterate smokers take time out to learn the art of Snusing. You can be sure - the group that will take time to experiment and learn the proper Snus sucking technique are young adults and kids that want to be young adults. If we let this happen we will end up with another generation of nicotine addicts - never able to reach their full potential. The taglines for Skoal Dry, "No Smoke, No Spit, No Boundaries" and Camel SNUS, "Pleasure for wherever!!" add more encouragement to give it a try.

Helliker in his article doesn't once mention children - our future leaders. Kids - enticed to try the stuff would become nicotine addicts never able to reach their full potential. We know he has a smart wife that was going to give him the boot if he didn't stop using tobacco.

Recent study - . In Sweden, many smokers quit smoking by switching to smokeless tobacco. But researchers didn’t find a similar effect among U.S. smokers. Murray Kessler ,former CEO of UST, Inc. (now Vice Chair, Altria Group, Inc.) Nine Out of Ten U.S. Smokers Who Try Smokeless Still Reject the Product..

efforts to communicate with adult consumers about the unique opportunity that very low-TSNA dissolvable smokeless tobacco offers to dependent smokers."

Note Star Scientific their products as very low-TSNA dissolvable smokeless tobacco. Dr. Stephen S. Hecht, an internationally recognized expert on cancer-causing agents in tobacco, points out even with the pasteurization process used for the Swedish tobacco products does produce lower levels of nitrosamines than found in most American products, but the levels are not low. They are still 10-100 times higher than the levels of carcinogenic nitrosamines in any other consumer product. (Communication 1/25/2007)

Morgan Stanley estimates that U.S. consumers spent $4.47 billion on smokeless tobacco in 2007 versus $78 billion on cigarettes. These numbers are worthwhile, we've been using numbers from 2005 $82 billion for cigarettes and for the smokeless tobacco category about $3.7 billion.

Growth in smokeless category has not come from the snus products but mainly from a Conwood price/value brand called Grizzly.


All tobacco products are bad.. nicotine itself has a number of severe adverse reaction like altering brain development in adolescents . The latest discovered in
found in document documents nicotine lowers the threshold for the onset vfib..


after all it's a rat poison