Just to rile everybody up, here’s another newspaper article.Annoying articleI already responded (under a pseudonym, lest I be accused of bias ;)), but it will probably be deleted. Oh well. As usual newspaper columnists who should know better bandy around half-baked facts and twist truths to mislead the public. You do a disservice by simply jumping on the anti-tobacco band wagon without telling both sides of the story. Hence your article descends from an attempt at intelligent investigative journalism to polemic. It particularly bothers me when Nasal Snuff is lumped in with other ways of ingesting nicotine and is tarred with the same brush. Nasal Snuff (and other smokeless tobaccos, btw) is LESS harmful to a factor of at LEAST 1000 times than smoking. This makes it a viable alternative to smoking for inveterate smokers in any smoking cessation strategy. By way of example: ‘John Hill linked nasal cancers to snuff’: John Hill pretended to be a doctor in order to get out of a large bill he owed his snuff supplier. He later recanted his ‘diagnosis’, admitting he was trying to negatively impact the business of his local tobacco shop. Hardly reliable evidence that nasal snuff causes cancer. In fact since this is the ONLY ‘evidence’ that nasal snuff causes cancer, then it is perhaps safe to assume that it does not, or if it does, it is on such a small scale as not to have been noticed in over 4 centuries of use. See here: Snuff-induced malignancy of the nasal vestibule: a case report American Journal of Otolaryngology, Volume 28, Issue 5, Pages 353-356 S. Sreedharan, M. Hegde, R. Pai, S. Rhodrigues, R. Kumar, A. Rasheed Pertinent quotation: ‘The last reported case of nasal snuff causing cancer of the nose was described by John Hill in 1761. We describe here a case of a 69-year-old woman who developed a nasal vestibular malignancy after 30 years of snuff usage, and this, we believe, is the only reported case of nasal snuff causing cancer in the last 2 centuries.’ So here we see it taken as fact again. Even if we do accept that John Hill was correct (a dubious claim at best) it is still difficult to conclusively state, as you do, that Nasal Snuff causes cancer. It is akin to saying that smoking causes people to live longer on the evidence that my next door neighbor’s grandfather lived to 103 and smoked 40 cigarettes a day from the age of 15. Clearly neither statement holds any scientific relevance. I point you also to a site sanctioned by the New Zealand government: http://www.smokeless.org.nz/nasalsnuff.htm Now this would an interesting topic for you to investigate, don’t you think? At least you would be doing your smoking readers a service. Dave
Mr. Bill “MrSnuff” Block, Very nice comments, well written, It is obvious in reading your comment that you know more than the author, which I am certain he is not happy with. Well Done!
Hold their feet to the fire Mr. snuff
well the comments wouldnt load for me i get a call from the los angeles times subscription dept about once a month . i always tell the telemarketer that i will not be subscribing as i hate there anti tobacco stance in there opinion section every month or so always calling for more bans taxes etc . the last guy got a good laugh out of it
Nice Job, the columnist really took a hit there, he may be inspired to write a snuff supporting column now! Really, after reading his response, i think he’s shocked.
My latest post FYI: Dear Mr Moran: thank you for not deleting my post just because I happen to have an alternate point of view regarding the ‘evidence’ of how evil tobacco is. You would be surprised, nay shocked, how rabid the anti-tobacco lobby generally is. Also if you scratch the surface just a little more you will find that there are so many lies and mis-truths put about regarding this topic, it is shocking in a free-speech democracy such as ours. To the question at hand: you will find reference to several articles pointing to the relative safety of smokeless tobacco here: www.tobaccoharmreduction.org run by the University of Alberta, Canada. There are a good number of articles as well as intelligent discussion of the subject. Another article you might read is on the American Council for Science and Health website here:http://www.acsh.org/healthissues/newsID.744/healthissue\_detail.asp And this: http://mrsnuff.com/LiteratureRetrieve.aspx?ID=22886 A good blog here (though you will need to scroll through the non-relevant posts (there aren’t too many and it is well laid out: http://mrsnuff.com/\_blog/Mr\_Snuff\_Blog How’s this for a great quote in the Lancet: (sorry I forget the authors but a quick search will find them easily enough - Jarvis maybe?): “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. 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.” Lancet.1980 Mar 1;1(8166):474-5.; (UK Medical Journal) I can certainly send you more links if you are interested. For what it is worth I do not smoke and never have. I do snuff however. I find it to be a fantastic hobby; a lot of fun and a great community. However a few years ago I became concerned about the health aspects and started digging around to educate myself. What I found SHOCKED me. While I was very pleased to find little if any evidence that caused me any alarm, I have become increasingly upset about how much anti-tobacco has managed to manipulate the scientific evidence, with I might add, the Surgeon General’s active connivance. Precisely what so-called Big Tobacco was accused of doing much t everybody’s chagrin. This does a great disservice to the American public and ultimately will cost lives, not to mention the assault on our civil liberties. The latest of course being the banning of flavored cigarettes, and the recent tax hikes. I honestly believe this would be a worthy use of your time: a deeper investigation of the real facts rather than simply toeing the party line and rehashing the same (basically) story as everybody else. There is little space given to, for example, addiction and the definition of it, with regard to nicotine and those who enjoy it; little space given to nicotine and how relatively benign it is as a socially acceptable drug (consider for example that NOBODY dies of nicotine overdose, whereas annually caffeine does kill). While I have not researched the science around smoking, consider this (found here: http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mbsiegel/8237835006475306267/?src=hsn): 400,000 deaths caused by smoking, or is it ZERO deaths??? Anti-smokers claim that there are 400,000 smokers dying every year due to deaths ‘caused’ by their smoking. CDC data from the table here: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/...ml/ mm5745a3.htm shows that there are an estimated 392,684 smokers deaths from the 19 diseases that are associated with smoking. The table shows that there are a total of 1,293,886 deaths from these diseases. Smokers are 26% of the population included in this data and smokers would have 26% of those deaths even if they did not smoke. 26% of 1,293,886 is 336,410 smokers deaths occurring even if they did not smoke. 392,684 deaths minus the 336,410 deaths, that would have occurred even if smokers did not smoke, leaves 56,274 deaths. The number of smokers deaths that might only be associated with their smoking is actually 56,274. 56,274 deaths is 17% of the 336,410 smokers deaths that would have normally occurred. That is a 17% increased risk of death and that is a relative risk of 1.17(RR=1.17). A RR=1.17 is NOT considered to be statistically significant. Experts say that you need a RR of at least 2 in order to even start to consider causality. A RR=2 means that there is only a 50% chance that something caused something and a 50% chance that it did not. A RR=1.17 means that there is about an 85% chance that a death was NOT caused by smoking and ONLY a 15% chance that it was!!! There is NO validity in saying that those 56,274 deaths to smokers were ‘caused’ by smoking!! The number of deaths from those diseases that can to said to be ‘caused’ ONLY by smoking is ‘ZERO’!!! best regards, Bill
A good friend of my family is a nurse, and she tells me smoking related deaths are way overstated. She basically told me that if someone smokes, and they die in the hospital, they put it down as a “contributing factor” as a matter of course. It doesn’t matter what they actually die of, unless it’s an accident. If they smoke, it’s a “contributing factor”.
Think of all the people that die from eating flour and sugar.
Nice work Mr.Snuff. Very well written. I think you should put together a series of articles and do some freelance writing for the papers. “anti-tobacco exposed” Maybe you could make some extra money for your efforts and get the truth out there at the same time.
I’ve heard that a smoker with an active lifestyle and healthy diet is healther than a sedentary non-smoker. That’s statistically speaking though. Choosing to smoke is still like Russian Roulette I think.
I personally feel that all that fastfood Americans eat is more to worry about. I really wish that were targeted for high taxes in place of tobacco. Tobacco can atleast be good for you…
Fast food mass consumption is the most dangerous health issue in america period.
@Bob, that’s why I eat my fast foods very slowly.
it’s amazing how much fast food some people eat. I’ve known more then a few people who have at least one meal of fast food.
Well there is a direct link with processed food, and refined carbohydrate consumption to diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer. Not the theoretical BS people try and link health issues to snuff and snus. And these “foods” are freely bought for, and by children.
I wish somebody would do a legit research project supporting tobacco as a health substance…this anti-tobacco stuff is just too much and invading of our rights…