I was able to break the grip of tobacco using electronic cigarettes. There is no tobacco at all in them, just nicotine water and flavoring. I used a pack a day before finding out about them and three months later, not one cigarette has been used. They don't smell because nothing burns and they are cheap. I figure that it is only costing me about $5 a week to use them vs the $60+ I was with cigs...
As for safety, they are new and there haven't been any comprehensive studies on them that I am aware of. But my reasoning was nicotine, water and flavor atomized into a vapor has to be safer than nicotine and the 4000+ chemicals burned in cigarettes. Minimally, it takes tar, ash and carbon monoxide out of the equation.
http://www.e-cigsmoker.com
e-cigsmokerof NY1:35PM March 19, 2010
Get off your high horse, jack ass.
I smoked 3 packs of cigarettes a day and have quit completly with Camel Snus it has to be better than 3 packs a day.
Everett Overfieldof MI2:34AM March 16, 2009
Just so you know, Camel Snus is awesome. I've completely given up smoking for it.
But Camel Orbs are gross though.
Skevinof OR8:39PM February 07, 2009
You can't just tell people that snus is a harmful tobacco product when you don't have any research or evidence to back you up. I believe that snus is a safe dip and here's why:
1. Snus will not cause recession since it is placed in the upper lip therefore there is no downward force applied to the lower gums like there is in other dip products.
2. Since snus is steamed tobacco the steaming process eliminates many carcinegens in that are in normal dip.
3. Since snus is in minituare pouches, the pouches limit how much nicotine you can receve at once. In normal dip you can take as big of a pinch as you want.
Snus does have nicotine in it but it is not as dangerous as regular dip. Until you have some research, you can't say that snus is dangerous
Mattof OH11:55AM January 30, 2009
I dont quite get your posting. And you seem to shift gears. At first you say you agree with Rodu, then you say things that seem to be in disagreement and attack him personally.
By your reasoning if Rodu advocated pharmaceutical nicotine and received money from pharmaceutical companies would he not be a shill for pharmaceutical companies? There are after all really only two ways to get nicotine, tobacco or 'medical' nicotine. Seems to me someone is going to make money off of nicotine one way or the other. Pharmaceutical companies have a long history of using bad research to get approval for their products. Look into Lipitor and you'll find that it is basically worthless at achieving its claimed benefit, reducing heart attack mortality, but great at destroying your liver.
According to your standard of good harm reduction if you do not introduce any new harm it is good. Well according to the research snus does not introduce any new harms for smokers. So how is this not good harm reduction according to your own standard? I've read Rodu's work and NEVER seen him recommend people who do not currently use nicotine suddenly start.
Your no studies statements do not make sense. There are plenty of studies about snus.
JohnGof NC6:02PM January 19, 2009
Regardless of whether or not Mr. Rodu is a smokeless tobacco shill or not, you have to admit one thing:
That even if greed or gullibility are involved, if he has been 'making the rounds' as you say and has disseminated the facts about smokeless tobacco and harm reduction, he's almost certainly doing a much better job of making people healthier than the author of this article.
No matter what his intentions are, the stuff he's saying is true. Let the people make their own *informed* choices through it. If he is a shill, then perhaps the real issue in all of this is why someone like him is doing a much better job of improving smokers' health and chances of quitting than a whole army of Sarah Baldauf "health experts"?
It's completely mind boggling to think that we're supposed to trust to inform us are failing miserably at their job and, instead, people trying to sell us something are providing the information. Yet this is what is apparently happening. Much credit to the few health associations that put health and people ahead of agendas and suggesting smokeless tobacco use to smokers wanting to quit.
Namof CA6:25PM January 16, 2009
I just quit smoking a month ago after smoking for 8 years (about a 5 cigarette-a-day habit) It was ironic that a free trial can of Camel SNUS helped me quit smoking Camel cigarettes, especially because soon after I found real Swedish snus and have never even purchased the Camel SNUS after the free trial can. I guess sometimes big tobacco does help you out (although unintentionally).
Currently, I use one (or less) of a mini portion of snus a day (0.5g pouches containing 4mg of nicotine each). I guess it turns out that I was addicted more to the smoking than the nicotine since I don't even consider this snus usage a 'habit.'
Regarding the subject heading of this post: why am I pissed off? I'm pissed off because so-called health experts and tobacco crusaders such as the author of this article have been withholding information from the public concerning informed tobacco use. I had to go online and dig up studies and research on the topic to fully understand the various forms of tobacco use and their associated risks. Had I not, I would likely still be a smoker headed to an early death. What worries me even more are articles like the one above that may actually deter people from digging deeper and becoming more informed.
At this point, there isn't really one credible voice in the literature that argues that smokeless tobacco (especially snus) is NOT much safer than smoking. Yet why do I keep seeing these articles stating "you may not be better off switching to smokeless tobacco from smoking"?
The answer I've come to realize is this: the anti-tobacco zealots are more interested in opposing tobacco in any form rather than ensuring the health of their fellow human beings.
Namof CA6:08PM January 16, 2009
It is always amazing to me that Brad never misses an opportunity to tell everyone about his chair in harm reduction, but he doesn't tell you that it is paid for by the smokeless tobacco companies. While I mostly agree with him, the fact is that in every position he has on nicotine replacement therapy that I agree with him on, he has tobacco as the only delivery vehicle for it that he is interested in talking about. This tells me a great deal about his motives and how they are tied to the people that have paid for his research and his chair in harm reduction at the smokeless tobacco companies. There are other means to do this, and if he was really all about harm reduction, he would be an advocate for other forms of NRT, even ones that need to come to market still.
I am not a prohibitionist, I even advocate for legalizing other controlled drugs, since the war on drugs is an complete failure and causes new problems of its own. So don't lump me in that group. But I think the guy needs a little transparency. Obviously that would not serve his tobacco funders well and is highly unlikely to happen.
Brad never misses a chance to post on the tons of blogs out here in the cyber world, (I mean the numbers of his posts are just mind boggling) and many of the posts are word for word the same. Makes me kinda think the tobacco companies that he shills for are paying someone else to chase down all these blog sites etc. and have someone post in his name. I mean the guy is a full time doctor, educator, researcher, etc. - how does he find time to do it all? There is more to this than meets the eye, in spite of his facts being for the most part true. Viral marketing of snus etc. on the web is rampant and under the radar. He is a facilitator of - not what he advocates for, (people who cannot quit making the switch), he is a facilitator of an introductory vehicle to our youth. Be he a well meaning dupe, or a knowing participant this for financial gain, this is the reality of it all. It absolutely a brilliant marketing plan on the part of the smokeless companies. They cannot make claims themselves because that puts them into a category that forces them to have their product claims substantiated, and opens up a legal can of worms. But having this guy do the work for them gets them off the hook. Absolutely brilliant.
Good harm reduction like needle exchange programs or methadone, do not introduce ANY new harm. This cannot be said about what he advocates for. When he says there are no studies that prove otherwise, that actually means there are NO STUDIES, it does not mean that if someone invested the money into the kinds of studies that looked at smoking itself, that we would not fully understand the relationship between snus or conventional spit with pancreatic cancers and more. And let's not even get off on to the subject of chronic inflammation (Perio disease caused by chew) and heart issues which is now well established.
Steve6:29PM January 15, 2009
According the the CDC, cigarettes kill half of all daily smokers, including 440,000 Americans annually year from respiratory and heart diseases and many different types of cancer (including 74% of all oral cancer deaths among men).
In sharp contrast, daily use of smokefree tobacco products poses a slightly increased risk of oral cancer (compared to never tobacco users), which is significantly lower than the risk of oral cancer due to cigarettes.
Smokers who switching to smokefree tobacco products reduce their tobacco mortality risks by nearly as much as by quitting all tobacco. Several million male exsmokers in the US, and several hundred thousand male exsmokers in Sweden, have quit smoking cigarettes by switching to smokefree tobacco products.
Recently introduced low nitrosamine smokefree tobacco products are virtually identical to nicotine lozenges (that are sold as smoking cessation aids), except that the smokefree tobacco products tend to deliver larger doses of nicotine more quickly, tend to taste better, and are less expensive.
For the past 22 years, I've campaigned to enact smokefree workplace policies and laws, increase cigarette taxes, reduce tobacco industry marketing to youth, hold cigarette companies accountable, and assist smokers to quit.
I consider it shocking that some anti-tobacco extremists (who this article refers to as experts) don't want smokers to reduce their risks by switching to smokefree tobacco products, and don't even want smokers to be informed that smokefree tobacco products are far less hazardous alternatives to cigarettes.
Public health agencies, health organizations, and healthcare professionals have an ethical duty to truthfully inform smokers (and the public) of the comparable risks of different tobacco products.
Bill Godshall, Smokefree Pennsylvaniaof PA5:46PM January 14, 2009
I am a professor of medicine, and I hold an endowed chair in tobacco harm reduction research, at the University of Louisville. This article raises “health concerns” about smokeless tobacco products. However, scientific studies have proven that use of smokeless tobacco is 98% safer than smoking. While no tobacco product is completely safe, the majority of cigarette smokers are routinely misinformed – by government agencies and by anti-tobacco extremists – about the relative safety of smokeless products. Unlike cigarettes, smokeless does not cause lung cancer, heart disease or emphysema. Statistically, long-term smokeless users have about the same risk of dying from tobacco-related illnesses as automobile users have of dying in a car wreck. In fact, switching from cigarettes to smokeless provides almost all of the health benefits of complete tobacco abstinence.
The quotes from the “experts” are very disappointing. The comment about jumping from a building is grossly inaccurate and irresponsible. Even if smokers were jumping from the twentieth story, smokeless users would be jumping from the second step -- above ground level. The other expert says that switching from smoking to smokeless is “unproven.” Apparently she is not aware of research from Sweden, where for fifty years men have smoked less and used more smokeless tobacco than in any other developed country. The result: Swedish men have the lowest rates of lung cancer -- indeed, of all smoking-related deaths -- in the developed world. Research from the U.S., published last year, also shows that hundreds of thousands of American men have also made the switch (http://www.harmreductionjournal.com/content/5/1/18 )
Finally, switching from cigarettes to smokeless is not just an industry ploy; it has been endorsed by two prestigious medical organizations, the British Royal College of Physicians and the American Association of Public Health Physicians. The Royal College concluded “...that smokers smoke predominantly for nicotine, that nicotine itself is not especially hazardous, and that if nicotine could be provided in a form that is acceptable and effective as a cigarette substitute, millions of lives could be saved.” (www.rcplondon.ac.uk/pubs/brochure.aspx?e=234 )
Last year the AAPHP became the first medical organization in the U.S. to formally adopt a policy of “…encouraging and enabling smokers to reduce their risk of tobacco-related illness and death by switching to less hazardous smokeless tobacco products.” (www.aaphp.org/special/joelstobac/20081026HarmReductionResolutionAsPassedl.pdf )
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e-cigsmoker of NY 1:35PM March 19, 2010
Everett Overfield of MI 2:34AM March 16, 2009
Skevin of OR 8:39PM February 07, 2009
Matt of OH 11:55AM January 30, 2009
JohnG of NC 6:02PM January 19, 2009
Nam of CA 6:25PM January 16, 2009
Nam of CA 6:08PM January 16, 2009
Steve 6:29PM January 15, 2009
Bill Godshall, Smokefree Pennsylvania of PA 5:46PM January 14, 2009
Brad Rodu of KY 1:29PM January 14, 2009