During the time I have been using snuff, I have come to realise that I’m not the biggest fan of flavoured snuffs, and only use them very occasionally. I do, however, like a little variety here and there, and so I have been making a concerted effort to try as many ‘plain’ snuffs as possible. I’ve tried all of the ‘usual suspects’, and my everyday staples are various S.P. type snuffs from various manufacturers. I was initially put off trying High Dry Toast because I read that it’s very ‘sneezy’, but I bought Samuel Gawith ‘Irish D Light’ recently to try out. Well, what a revelation! I love the stuff, and I wish I had tried it sooner! Now, before I go any further, I must stress a couple of things: 1. I know that none of us here are really qualified to answer this question, I’m just shooting the breeze. 2. I started snuffing in part to cut down on my smoking, so any snuff has got to be healthier than smoking cigarettes. I’ve read that it’s mainly the nitrosamines that are released when tobacco is burned that present the biggest risk of cancer to smokers, and that snuff is considerably safer because it is smokeless. Also, as I understand it, British snuff is allegedly safer than other types because the tobacco is ‘raw’, ie. the manufacturing process does not heat the tobacco sufficiently to produce the cancer- causing nitrosamines. An analogue of this situation is American ‘snuff’ compared with Swedish snuss- the Yanks use heat in the process, but the Swedish don’t, and the Swedish product is deemed safer. So, where does this leave toasted snuffs? Does the toasting process produce the dreaded nitrosamines and render toasted snuffs dangerous compared with non- toasted ones?
don’t know but plant varieity is also a big player in nitro levels (I"am calling it nitro now instead of nitrosamines.) For one sweedish snus has a diffrent variety of tobacco then american moist snuffs do. The white burley typicaly used for cigeratte manifacture is higher in nitro then most other commercial plants.
Its the condensates in the smoke - with the NSAs - that do the damage, plus the metals, cyanide and carbon monoxide. I always come back to the fact that Wilsons - who have made snuff and toasted snuff since the 1700’s have never had any kind of health suit filed. Does toast have NSAs? I don’t know, but I know the risk isn’t serious enough for me to ever worry. I also know there will never be a 100% risk free tobacco form
It is said that there are somewhere around 4000 chemicals found in cigarette smoke and over 40 are known to cause cancer. If you BBQ food and it gets a few black burnt spots on it, those burnt spots are loaded with cancer causing chemicals in very small amounts. The benefit of the food you eat out way the risks. Now I imagine toasted/scotch snuffs have a greater risk than non toasted but the risk is very small. So small that like snuffster said, that in over 300 years there has only been 1 reported case of cancer. Some old lady and she probably had the cancer gene and it was looking for a place to grow and went to her nose instead of somewhere like her breasts? She probably would have ended up with some form of cancer even if she never touched tobacco. I know with the American Scotch snuffs, the ones that are the most “toasty” have higher levels of TSNA’s Also for tobacco TSNA levels can be effected by the climate during the curing season. A wet curing season will produce a tobacco with higher tsna levels than tobacco cured during a dry season. Also the longer the leaves stay on the plant after the tobacco plant has been topped, the higher tsna’s it will have. Stalk cured leaves will have the highest levels… High use of a nitrogen fertilizer on the crop will also give it higher tsna levels. There are other products that have nitrosamines like: cosmetic products, sunscreens, nonfat dry milk, beer, rubber, bacon.
A friend of me wrote a mail to Pöschl, this is the biggest snuff producer, if their snuff contains nitrosamines. Their reply was - there are no nitrosamines in their snuff .
I’am posotive that nose cancer lady would have had and died from nose cancer wheter or not she snuffed. I’ve noticed that there are non-snuffers who have died of nose cancer (very rarely) and since they did not use snuff no one thought snuff had anything to do with their cancer. Imagine no one drinks green tea in the country you live in then you get stomach cancer everyone will wrongly assume it must have been the tea that gave you stomach cancer.
i just want to point out that most of the arguments about are hardly convincing. we can not know whether that ladys nose cancer was caused by snuff or not. it is possible that it was. this also does say nothing about dangers of snuff, as one case is hardly enough to base any kind of judgement on. can we just stick to the facts and say that we do not know exactly about snuff risks, but that it is probably one of the safer ways to use tobacco?
It is scientifical proven that snuff can not cause nose cancer. Risk factors for nose cancer are: smoking tobacco, using insecticides at home, grilling meat products and some chemicals used in the industry.
as far as i know, there are chemicals in snuff known to be potentially cancer causing. we just do not know whether they actually do and how high the risk is exactly. this is mostly due to to the lack of research on the topic. am i wrong?
There is a significant quantity of people who use snuff, but not a single medical study which suggest that snuff cause cancer. That was the reason for removing the cancer warning from the snuff tins… And a scientific study in germany: http://www.poeschl-tobacco.com/rechts.php?id\_doc=53
there have been more studies too. Look for them on medical sites (like ones intended more for doctors). Lots more studies on snus though.