So, fresh off my being kicked out of a bar for snuff usage…http://snuffhouse.org/discussion/9075/got-kicked-out-of-bar-for-snuff-usage-and-had-cops-called-twice I’ve been going to a local community center for about 2 years now. Whenever I’ve gone to the bathroom, I’ve used that time as a snuff break. I’ve kept my snufftaking as my little secret, there is no reason to tell anyone about it. Apparently I’ve left some brown powder on the floor whenever I’ve used the restroom, and apparently people have noticed that whenever I use the restroom the brown powder shows up and they’ve connected it to me. So I was told by the head social worker at the community center that she wants to see me, and I had a sitdown with her and one other social worker. (One other thing is that I had recently seen this social worker at an event, I just happened to have recently taken a snuff pinch and was blowing my nose, and it was coming out brown, I said I had a nose bleed, and she was repeatedly questioning me “but why it was brown?”, I said it was just dried blood, but apparently this was the final catalyst for her accusing me of being a heroin addict.) So they told me all about the brown powder on the floor, and how the latest drug epidemic in this area is snorting heroin that is apparently brown. They said that if I’m snorting heroin then firstly, I can’t have it there, and secondly they have to get me connected to a doctor to get me off of it. So after some interrogation, I said it was snuff, they had no idea what that is, I told them finely ground tobacco. Of course I always have snuff with me. I had a tiny 3.5g tin of McChrystyal’s Original and Genuine that I had showed them. Of course one of them read the warning label out loud to make it sound ominous “This tobacco product can DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and is ADDICTIVE”. Whatever. Then they opened it up and sniffed it gently, I told them it was menthol. Apparently they still believed I was getting nosebleeds from it (even though I only said I had a nosebleed to try to cover for the brown stuff on my tissue after I blew my nose.) But it was one of the most awkward exchanges ever. So much ignorance about snuff in this country. Getting kicked out of bars, getting accused of being a heroin junkie, sheesh, I love snuff but it sure can cause a lot of trouble.
This is why I always snuff in the open and not hide my usage of it.
This is why I always snuff in the open and not hide my usage of it.
Exactly the part I didn’t understand either. My snuff hobby is no little secret, I’m completely open about it. After all, there’s nothing to hide, and it’s fun seeing people react to the novelty of it. I’m not judged for it either. That might just be the point. I like to take a pinch in the middle of a conversation, not in secret in the bathroom.
Yeah, hiding it is asking for awkward encounters. I openly sniff and offer to other non-snuffers.
when something like this happens for the 2nd time, I also guess it’s the general appearance. Here I had some strange looks sometimes from friends, but when they know you sniff it’s even more accepted as cigarettes.
@willc @Kiwi78 @saucy_jack @lunecat @Roderick Um yeah, actually if you read my other thread about being kicked out of a bar for using snuff publicly and then escorted off the premises by police… even after I clearly explained to the bar owner that it was tobacco…I don’t think using snuff publicly and openly is the answer. I would end up in more trouble, not less. http://snuffhouse.org/discussion/9075/got-kicked-out-of-bar-for-snuff-usage-and-had-cops-called-twice At the bar I made a big show out of the snuff usage, offering it to smokers outside and explaining it and all that, thinking I was making it obvious that I wouldn’t be so blatant and open about it if it were an illicit drug…but that didn’t help me. Everyone outside the bar that night whom I told about my encounter told me I was a fool for having used the snuff openly and I should have taken it in to the bathroom. If I had kept my snuff usage to the bathroom in the bar that night, I probably wouldn’t have gotten kicked out. And if I used snuff openly just walking around the hallways of the community center where this latest incident happened…I guarantee that I would have gotten myself into trouble long ago, and multiple times every time someone saw me snufftake, thinking I was snorting an illegal drug. Most people, especially Americans, do NOT have any idea what snuff is. I don’t think using it publicly and openly is the answer. If I had just done a better job cleaning up my snuff mess in the bathroom, I would not have run into any problems at the community center. But if I inhaled some big pinches of snuff off my hand in public I guarantee I would have had more problems.
I was in a cafe in Melbourne, Oz, a while back planning on spending a few hours with a book and a few coffees. Very few snuff users in Oz, so I went up to the staff, showed them my snuff, told them I’d be using it liberally while I was in there. They giggled nervously, but decided I wasn’t dangerous and left me in peace. A fairly Bohemian joint, I probably wasn’t the weirdest person they saw that day.
I was in a cafe in Melbourne, Oz, a while back planning on spending a few hours with a book and a few coffees. Very few snuff users in Oz, so I went up to the staff, showed them my snuff, told them I’d be using it liberally while I was in there. They giggled nervously, but decided I wasn’t dangerous and left me in peace. A fairly Bohemian joint, I probably wasn’t the weirdest person they saw that day.
It’s an atrocity that you even have to go to that length and tell them. I wouldn’t have. I’m used to people looking at me sideways.
@Kiwi78: at the time, I’d only been snuffing for about a month. I might not bother now. But it’s not a bad approach. When I’m on field trips with colleagues I don’t know that well, I often still feel I might as well get it out of the road. I’m not apologizing or justifying, it’s just pre-empting curiosity.
Liberal nanny types are usually militant anti-smoking extremists. I’ve found that explaining that it is tobacco, and that I am using it to quit smoking usually shuts them up. Don’t let on that it’s something you actually enjoy doing, approach it from the ‘I’m trying to do the right thing and quit smoking for the children’ angle.
I am one of those people who just parks my ass at home on my couch in front of the TV, open a nice cold beer and enjoy my snuff. When anywhere else I am a bathroom snuffer, I take care not to make a mess
To get into bother once is unfortunate, to do it twice sounds like carelessness.
Let’s hope Divinus knows his Oscar Wilde… 
The thing is, telling a fib about why the result of a nose-blow comes out brown is making them think you’re telling a fib about the snuff. It is a shame (and wrong) that you got slung out of the bar, but like the rest I don’t hide my snuff habit, it’s easier to be honest about it and leads to less hassle.
Get a couple good bullets (I recommend the Posh ones) and use them. No mess and with practice you can conceal them in your hand and enjoy pretty much whenever you wish. If you need even more discretion, a portion of snus can suffice (though IMHO not as good as snuff).
@DivinusSalviarum These 2 incidents with you suggest that you wear some shadow of guiltiness or sinfulness everytime you use snuff. So you end up behaving as a junkie somehow, and that´s what other people perceive. Why did you go outside the bar to take snuff the first time? If you´re not doing anything wrong you should not be hiding or being too discreet… that´s surely that makes them mistake you for a drug addict.
By contrast, I remember a woman I used to know, a journalist, always well dressed and smart looking, who often used to walk down the busy street quite openly smoking a spliff. I was a bit shocked and asked her if she never worried about getting busted. She laughed and said, if you don’t look guilty, no-one ever looks twice.
I had one issue on an international flight way back when I was gainfully employed. My snuff box and spoon caused quite a stir until I let the flight attendant take a sniff and told him it was sinus medicine from my Chinese herbalist daughter in law. Which isn’t far from the truth. My daughter in law is a Chinese herbalist from Beijing but wouldn’t know snuff from bat guano. I usually carried a medicated on those long flights to help with that stale dry air. If I was in a testy mood I’d let loose with Black Rappee and really set 'em off. Pissing off idiots is one of the few hobbies I can still afford.
I am completely open about snuffing, except for one set of circumstances; I wouldn’t snuff in front of a cop. The reason for this is that I am not yet a US citizen (I’m a permanent resident). When filling out the forms, you have to state whether you have ever been arrested. Not convicted, arrested. I have never been arrested, but the immigration process is already long, arduous and costly. I imagine that the extra forms and background checks to explain away an arrest for snorting a brown powder would make the process even more difficult. I usually feel quite strongly about matters of principal such as this, but I’m not going to shoot myself in the foot either.
It’s not really a question of freedom. Having a wrongful arrest on my record wouldn’t prevent me from becoming a citizen, it would just be a giant pain in the ass paperwork-wise.
To get into bother once is unfortunate, to do it twice sounds like carelessness.
Let’s hope Divinus knows his Oscar Wilde…
@HR_pufnsnuff They don’t think it was a fib. They think the snuff caused the nosebleeds. A few months ago during the winter time I used to get real nosebleeds. It pretty much only happened in the dryness of my office between cold dry wintry air outside and dry heated air inside. I’ve been snufftaking for four years and never had a nosebleed problem except for that few-month period of time. As I’ve mentioned, I did nothing to hide my snuff habit at the bar, and that is what got me into trouble. Every patron outside I spoke to, sympathetic to my plight, said I should have known better and take that to the bathroom because if it looks like I’m doing drugs then the bar owner is going to assume I am doing drugs. If I were snorting salt or sugar I probably would have been kicked out of the bar, the action of inhaling a powdery substance into the nose is sadly associated with illicit drug use these days.
@DivinusSalviarum These 2 incidents with you suggest that you wear some shadow of guiltiness or sinfulness everytime you use snuff. So you end up behaving as a junkie somehow, and that´s what other people perceive. Why did you go outside the bar to take snuff the first time? If you´re not doing anything wrong you should not be hiding or being too discreet… that´s surely that makes them mistake you for a drug addict.
@snuffvillian I was already outside when I decided to take snuff. I was with some new friends (who I haven’t spoken to since) and they wanted to go outside because the bar was packed with people with no room to breathe and people bumping into each other constantly. The outside of the bar was fairly crowded too, and I was standing right by the door of the bar, it’s not like I went around the corner to take snuff where nobody would see me (if I did that then I probably wouldn’t have gotten into any trouble…so this whole “be open about it” strategy just doesn’t work in a lot of cases). I offered some snuff to some smokers outside and told them about it. One guy said wow that’s strong from a pinch of McC’s O&G and I laughed a bit since my menthol tolerance is sky-high and I barely notice the menthol in O&G, but he thanked me for the snuff and said he was going to look into it. Maybe I converted a smoker in the midst of all that craziness. There would have been no room to maneuver to take snuff in the bar, someone probably would have bumped into me and knocked my whole tin of Hedges all over the place brown powder going everywhere. And I don’t think the bar owner would have appreciated me using snuff in his bar. He was a complete asshole who didn’t listen to me when I explained it was tobacco and just walked away. I convinced the bouncer who had kicked me out that I wasn’t snorting any illegal drugs but he said he had no control, the owner already decided he wanted me gone. I told the bouncer this snuff is a lot safer than that cigarette you’re smoking! It seems like a lot of people here are monday morning quarterbacking about how easy it could have been for me to avoid trouble when it’s not quite that simple. I got in trouble for using snuff publicly and openly, I got in trouble for using snuff privately in the bathroom. Just because some people here have gotten lucky in bars where they didn’t mind snuff usage doesn’t mean that is universal. Most people, especially Americans, have no idea what snuff is, they see you inhaling some sort of powder they assume you are snorting a drug and freak out and there is no reasoning with them.