Buddy just sent me this. Pretty interesting read, thought I would share. Hope it hasn’t been posted before. Interesting article by a government study: Blood nicotine and cotinine concentrations were measured in 27 volunteers before and after taking snuff. Within 10 minutes after snuffing blood nicotine concentrations were comparable to those obtained after the 10 minutes or so that it takes to smoke a cigarette. Nicotine intake from snuffing was related to the experience of the snuffer. In daily and occasional snuffers increases in plasma nicotine concentrations averaged 77.7 and 12.3 nmol/l (12.6 and 2.0 ng/ml) respectively, while the novices showed no appreciable increase. The increase shown by thea daily snuffers was comparable to the average increase of 62.3 nmol/l (10.1 ng/ml) obtained from a single cigarette by a group of heavy smokers. The peak nicotine concentrations in the daily snuffers were also similar to the peak values in 136 heavy smokers–222.6 and 226.3 nmol/l (36.1 and 36.7 ng/ml), respectively. Unusual multiple-dose snuffing produced massive increases in plasma nicotine to concentrations that have never been recorded in smokers. The similarity of the concentrations produced by regular daily snuffing and regular daily smoking suggests that the plasma nicotine concentration has some controlling influence over the self-regulation of these two quite different forms of tobacco use. The rapid absorption of nicotine from snuff confirms its potential as an acceptable and relatively harmless substitute for smoking.
Yes, this thirty plus year old study has been discussed here once or twice but it is always nice for new snuffers to be assured that once they get into snuffing consistently they will be rewarded with better nicotine absorption.
great if you could post a link to the source…
My buddy is going to email the link to me. As soon as I get it, I will post it.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6794710 There you go, as promised.
thanks!
published 32 years ago, back when gov’t officials had spine
Does the article refer to nasal or oral snuff? I presume oral snuff, for two reasons: - the article is from the US, where the term “snuff” is used for both types. - the high concentrations of nicotine. These concentrations are hardly plausible with regard to the tiny amounts of tobacco taken per pinch. The amount of tobacco used for oral snuffing is still small but far closer to a cigarette. Because there is less nicotine loss than when smoking, the levels remain comparable. Is there a study that compares the three methods of tobacco consumption? Best regards Patrick B. Ludwig
Just by the wording of the report I am pretty confident that it is about nasal snuff. Where they say mutiple dose snuffing, and also the last sentence where it says an acceptable and relatively harmless substitute for smoking. American dipping snuff has never been classified as harmless, matter of fact some of the time it has accelerated health risks compared to smoking.
Here is a more complete portion of the study http://www.scribd.com/doc/101779040/Snuff-Nicotine-Content @Ludwig_1954 good point. This partial information is being passed around without it being clear that it is nasal snuff being studied.
Thank you @Juxtaposer , for the complete article. It is clearly about nasal snuff. Considering the amounts of tobacco involved, the mucous membrane seems to have enormous absorptive capabilities for nicotine. In turn, smoking seems to be a very Inefficient way to consume nicotine. It also raises questions with regard to the addictive/habit forming qualities of nicotine, since there seem to be far fewer (nasal) snuff “addicts” than cigarette smokers, despite comparable if not higher nicotine consumption. This is possibly due to the tobacco additives used in cigarettes. With regard to oral snuffing, the amount of tobacco involved, the solvent (saliva) involved and the duration of the exposure of the oral mucous membranes to the sustance seem to indicate huge levels of nicotine. These levels would raise questions with regard to nicotine toxicity. After all, one often hears the superstition, that the amount of nicotine found in a single cigarette may be fatal … Not that I really care, snce the mortality rate in people afflicted with life is 100 % anyway. Best regards Patrick B. Ludwig
Since I started doing snuff on a regular basis, I have had some interesting conversations with older folks at work that talk about their parents doing snuff using the oral method but it is the same snuff that I use as nasal. I started reading the labels and even noticed that the sweet snuff warns of tooth decay (I am assuming that these are used both ways) and the toasts (100% tobacco) only say that they are addictive which leads me to believe that no one wants their gums to burn
@mattthefox Warning labels are mandated by regulatory agencies. Toasts made in the UK follow EU rules for snuff, and state “this tobacco product can damage your health and is addictive” US made snuffs are all labeled as if they were oral tobacco since nasal use is considered archaic by the US agencies. These are required to have four random warnings, which largely don’t apply to the actual product. The Toque snuffs sold in the US are bizarrely forced to warn you that it can cause gum disease and tooth loss for instance. Sometimes laws don’t make a lot of sense.
I don’t suppose anybody has access to the other Russell et al study “New Age for Snuff” ?
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/vjv11b00;jsessionid=67BB15C1767B1C9B8569489C1869B6B0.tobacco03 http://ermtony.pbworks.com/f/Authoritative+Health+Info.txt
@MrSnuff There is a reasonable synopsis at http://www.snuffbox.org.uk/auth.html There is also a very brief synopsis at the Lancet: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(80)91010-7/abstract I am afraid that you will have to copy and paste the link above - for some reason when you click on it only the part prior to the (80) works as a link so then you get a page not found error at the Lancet. The Lancet page has a link to ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673680910107 where you can download the entire research paper but only at the cost of $31.50. Having read a great deal about snuff not having any significant impact on health I would rather spend that money on purchasing snuff than reading about it. :)) EDIT: Having written all of that there is a very badly scanned pdf copy of the report online. If you download the pdf and then zoom in you can read most of the report. It is only 4 pages long and most of the text is in the synopsis at snuffbox so I would not bother wasting $31.50. The pdf is at: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ban71b00/pdf;jsessionid=A929EE44D379A075AF391D86B68CAB30.tobacco03
Hi All The Introduction section to the longer extract of the article uploaded by Juxtaposer makes it clear that nasal snuff was being studied, so the similar levels of nicotine absorption by smokers and nasal snuffers is good news to those of us like me who have replaced a 50 a day cigarette habit with FUBAR Grunt. Regards Ed.