Encyclopedia
Tobacco refers to a genus of broad-leafed plants of the
nightshade family indigenous to
North and
South America, or to the dried and cured leaves of such plants. Tobacco leaves are often smoked in the form of a
cigar or
cigarette, or in a
smoking pipe, or in a
water pipe or a
hookah. This could damage the lungs and could also potentially cause lung disorders such as
asthma. Tobacco is also chewed, "dipped" , and sniffed into the nose as finely powdered snuff.
Tobacco contains the
alkaloid nicotine, a powerful neurotoxin that is particularly harmful to
insects. All means of consuming tobacco result in the absorption of nicotine in varying amounts into the user's
bloodstream, and over time the development of tolerance and dependence. Absorption quantity, frequency and speed seem to have a direct relationship with how strong a dependence and tolerance, if any, might be created. A lethal dose of nicotine is contained in as little as one half of a cigar or three cigarettes; however, only a fraction of the nicotine contained in these products is actually released into the smoke, and most clinically significant cases of nicotine poisoning are the result of concentrated forms of the compound used as insecticides. Other active alkaloids in tobacco include harmala alkaloids.
Tobacco smoking carries significant risks including the potential to develop various
cancers as well as strokes, and severe
cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.
Significantly shorter life expectancies have been associated with tobacco smoking.
Many jurisdictions have enacted
smoking bans in an effort to minimize possible damage to public health caused by
tobacco smoking. The substantially increased risk of developing cancer as a result of tobacco usage seems to be due to the plethora of nitrosamines and other carcinogenic compounds found in tobacco and its residue as a result of anaerobic heating, either due to smoking or to flue-curing or fire-curing. The use of flue-cured or fire-cured smokeless tobacco in lieu of smoked tobacco reduces the risk of respiratory cancers but still carries significant risk of oral cancer.
In contrast, use of steam-cured chewing tobacco , avoids the carcinogenicity by not generating nitrosamines, but the negative effects of the nicotine on the
cardiovascular system and
pancreas are not ameliorated.
History
Native Americans used tobacco before Europeans arrived in America, and early European settlers in America learned to smoke and brought the practice back to
Europe, where it became hugely popular. At extremely high doses, tobacco becomes
hallucinogenic; accordingly, Native Americans generally did not use the drug recreationally. Rather, it was often consumed in extraordinarily high quantities and used as an
entheogen; generally, this was done only by experienced
shamans or medicine men. In addition to being smoked, uncured tobacco was often eaten, drunk as tobacco juice, or used in enemas. Early missionaries often reported on the state caused by tobacco, but as it spread into the west, it was no longer used in such large quantities or for entheogenic purposes. Religious use of tobacco is still common among many
indigenous peoples, particularly those of
South America.
With the arrival of Europeans, tobacco became one of the primary products fueling the colonization of the future American South, long before the creation of the
United States. The initial colonial expansion, fueled by the desire to increase tobacco production, was one cause of the first colonial conflicts with
Native Americans and became a driving factor for the use of
African slaves' labor.
In 1609, John Rolfe arrived at the
Jamestown Settlement in
Virginia. He is credited as the first man to successfully raise tobacco for commercial use at Jamestown. The tobacco raised in Virginia at that time,
Nicotiana rustica, known in South America as
Mapacho, is a very potent variety of tobacco [i]. ...
, was not to the liking of the Europeans, but Rolfe had brought some seed for
Nicotiana tabacum with him from
Bermuda. Shortly after arriving, his first wife died, and he married
Pocahontas, a daughter of Chief
Powhatan. Although most of the settlers wouldn't touch the tobacco crop, Rolfe was able to make his fortune farming it for export at Varina Farms Plantation. When he left for
England with Pocahontas, he was wealthy. When Rolfe returned to Jamestown following Pocahontas's death in England, he continued to improve the quality of tobacco. By 1620, 40,000 pounds of tobacco were shipped to England. By the time John Rolfe died in 1622, Jamestown was thriving as a producer of tobacco and Jamestown's population would top 4,000. Tobacco led to the importation of the colony's first black slaves as well as women from England in 1619.
The importation of tobacco into Europe was not without resistance and controversy, even in the 17th century. King
James I of England wrote a famous polemic titled
A Counterblaste to Tobacco in 1604 . In his essay, the king denounced tobacco use as "[a] custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse." In that same year, an English
statute was enacted that placed a heavy protective
tariff on every pound of tobacco brought into England.
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, tobacco continued to be the "cash crop" of the Virginia Colony, along with The Carolinas. Large tobacco warehouses filled the areas near the wharfs of new thriving towns such as
Richmond and
Manchester at the fall line on the James River, and Petersburg on the
Appomattox River.
Until 1883, tobacco excise tax accounted for one third of internal revenue collected by the United States government.
A historian of the American South in the late 1860s reported on typical usage in the region where it was grown:
The chewing of tobacco was well-nigh universal. This
habit had been widespread among the agricultural population of America both North and South before the war. Soldiers had found the quid a solace in the field and continued to revolve it in their mouths upon returning to their homes. Out of doors where his life was principally led the chewer spat upon his lands without offence to other men, and his homes and public buildings were supplied with spittoons. Brown and yellow parabolas were projected to right and left toward these receivers, but very often without the careful aim which
made for cleanly living. Even the pews of fashionable churches
were likely to contain these familiar conveniences. The large
numbers of Southern men, and these were of the better class
who presented themselves for the pardon of President Johnson, while they sat awaiting his pleasure in the ante-room at the White House, covered its floor with pools and rivulets of their spittle. An observant traveller in the South in 1865 said that in his belief seven-tenths of all persons above the age of twelve years, both male and female, used tobacco in some form. Women could be seen at the doors of their cabins in their bare feet, in their dirty one-piece cotton garments, their chairs tipped back, smoking pipes made of corn cobs into which were fitted reed stems or goose quills. Boys of eight or nine years of age and half-grown girls smoked. Women and girls "dipped" in their houses, on their porches, in the public parlors of hotels and in the streets.
As a lucrative crop, tobacco has been the subject of a great deal of biological and genetic research. The economic impact of Tobacco Mosaic disease was the impetus that led to the isolation of
Tobacco mosaic virus, the first virus to be identified; the fortunate coincidence that it is one of the simplest virii and can self-assemble from purified
nucleic acid and
protein led in turn to the rapid advancement of the field of virology. The 1946
Nobel Prize in Chemistry was shared by Wendell Meredith Stanley for his 1935 work crystallizing the virus, and showing that it still remains active.
Etymology
The Spanish word "tabaco" is thought to have its origin in Arawakan language, particularly, in the
Taino language of the
Caribbean, said to refer to a roll of these leaves or to the "tabago", a kind of y-shaped pipe for sniffing tobacco smoke
Cultivation
Sowing
Tobacco
seeds are scattered onto the surface of the
soil, as their
germination is activated by light. In colonial Virginia, seedbeds were fertilized with wood ash or animal
manure . Seedbeds were then covered with branches to protect the young plants from frost damage. These plants were left to grow until around April.
In the
nineteenth century, young plants came under increasing attack from the flea
beetle , causing destruction of half the United States tobacco crop in 1876. In the years afterward, many
experiments were attempted and discussed to control the flea beetle. By 1880 it was discovered that replacing the branches with a frame covered by thin fabric would effectively protect plants from the beetle. This practice spread until it became ubiquitous in the
1890s.
Today, in the
United States, unlike other countries, tobacco is often fertilized with the mineral
apatite in order to partially starve the plant for
nitrogen, which changes the taste. This accounts for the different flavor of American cigarettes from those available in other countries. There is, however, some suggestion that this may have
adverse health effects attributable to the
polonium content of apatite.
Transplanting
After the plants have reached a certain height, they are transplanted into fields. This was originally done by making a relatively large hole in the tilled earth with a tobacco peg, then placing the small plant in the hole. Various mechanical tobacco planters were invented throughout the late 19th and early 20th century to automate this process, making a hole, fertilizing it, and guiding a plant into the hole with one motion.
Topping and suckering
Once the tobacco plants are growing well, they will begin to produce shoots from the joint of each leaf with the stalk. These secondary shoots — known as "suckers" — are undesirable as they divert energy that could be directed into the leaves. They are removed in a process known as "suckering" . Generally this is done by hand several times during the season. Recently anti-suckering compounds have come into use.
At a certain stage of maturity, the plant will produce a flower cluster from its tip, as well as the tips of any suckers that remain on the plant. In order to divert more energy into the leaves, the plant is "topped" — the top is cut off.
Harvest
Tobacco is harvested in one of two ways. In the oldest method, the entire plant is harvested at once by cutting off the stalk at the ground with a curved knife. In the nineteenth century, bright tobacco began to be harvested by pulling individual leaves off the stalk as they ripened. The leaves ripen from the ground upwards, so a field of tobacco may go through several "pullings" before the tobacco is entirely harvested, and the stalks may be turned into the soil. "Cropping" or "pulling" are terms for pulling leaves off tobacco. Leaves are cropped as they ripen, from the bottom of the stalk up. The first crop at the very bottom of the stalks are called "sand lugs", as they are often against the ground and are coated with dirt splashed up when it rains. Sand lugs weigh the most, and are most difficult to work with. Originally workers cropped the tobacco and placed it on mule-pulled sleds. Eventually tractors with wagons were used to transport leaves to the stringer, an apparatus which uses twine to sew leaves onto a stick .
Some farmers use "tobacco harvesters" - basically a trailer pulled behind a tractor. The harvester is a wheeled sled or trailer that has seats for the croppers to sit on and seats just in front of these for the "stringers" to sit on. The croppers pull the leaves off in handfuls, and pass these to the "stringer", who loops twine around the handfuls of tobacco and hangs them on a long wooden square pole. Traditionally, the croppers, down in the dark and wet, with their faces getting slapped by the huge tobacco leaves, were men, and the stringers seated on the higher elevated seats were women. The harvester has places for 4 teams of workers: 8 people cropping and stringing, plus a packer who takes the heavy strung poles of wet green tobacco from the stringers and packs them onto the pallet section of the harvester, plus a driver, making the total crew of each harvester 10 people. Interestingly, the outer seats are suspended from the harvester - slung out over to fit into the aisles of tobacco. As these seats are suspended it is important to balance the weight of the 2 outside teams . Having too heavy or light a person in an unbalanced combination often results in the harvester tipping over especially when turning around at the end of a lane. Water tanks are a common feature on the harvester due to heat, and danger of dehydration for the workers. Salt tablets sometimes get used as well.
Pests
Pests of tobacco include the
moths
Endoclita excrescens,
Manduca sexta , and
Manduca quinquemaculata. Other
Lepidoptera whose
larvae use tobacco as a food plant include
Angle Shades,
Cabbage Moth, Mouse Moth,
Nutmeg Moth, Setaceous Hebrew Character and Turnip Moth. The dry tobacco leaves and
cigarettes are sometimes used as food for the Cigarette Beetle .
Curing
Cut plants or pulled leaves are immediately transferred to tobacco barns , where they will be cured. Curing methods varies with the type of tobacco grown, and tobacco barn design varies accordingly. Air-cured tobacco is hung in well-ventilated barns and allowed to dry over a period of weeks. Fire-cured tobacco is hung in large barns where smoldering fires of hardwoods are kept burning. Flue-cured tobacco was originally strung onto tobacco sticks, which were hung from tier-poles in curing barns . These barns have flues which run from externally-fed fire boxes, heat-curing the tobacco without exposing it to smoke. Traditional curing barns in the U.S. are falling into disuse, as the trend toward more efficient prefabricated metal "bulk bars", allows greater efficiency.
Curing and subsequent aging allows for the slow
oxidation and degradation of carotenoids in tobacco leaf. This produces certain compounds in the tobacco leaves very similar and give a sweet hay,
tea, rose oil, or fruity aromatic flavor that contribute to the "smoothness" of the smoke. Starch is converted to sugar which glycates protein and is oxidized into advanced glycation endproducts , a
caramelization process that also adds flavor. Inhalation of these AGEs in tobacco smoke contributes to
atherosclerosis and
cancer.
Unaged or low quality tobacco is often flavoured with these naturally occurring compounds. Tobacco flavoring is a significant part of a multi-million dollar industry.
The aging process continues for a period of months and often extends into the post-curing process.
Post-cure processing
After tobacco is cured, it is moved from the curing barn into a storage area for processing. If whole plants were cut, the leaves are removed from the tobacco stalks in a process called stripping. For both cut and pulled tobacco, the leaves are then sorted into different grades. In colonial times, the tobacco was then "prized" into hogsheads for transportation. In bright tobacco regions, prizing was replaced by stacking wrapped "hands" into loose piles to be sold at auction. Today, most cured tobacco is baled before sales under contract.
Other Types
Aromatic Fire-cured
Aromatic Fire-cured smoking tobacco is a robust variety of tobacco used as a condimental for pipe blends. It is cured by smoking over gentle fires. In the United States, it is grown in the western part of Tennessee, Western Kentucky and in
Virginia. Latakia is produced from oriental varieties of
N. tabacum. The leaves are cured and smoked over smoldering fires of local hardwoods and aromatic shrubs in
Cyprus and
Syria. Latakia has a pronounced flavor and a very distinctive aroma, and is used in the so-called Balkan and English-style pipe tobacco blends.
Fire-cured tobacco grown in
Kentucky and
Tennessee is used in some chewing tobaccos, moist snuff, some cigarettes and as a condiment leaf in pipe tobacco blends. It has a rich, slightly floral taste, and adds body and aroma to the blend.
Brightleaf tobacco
Prior to the
American Civil War, the tobacco grown in the US was almost entirely fire-cured dark-leaf. This was planted in fertile lowlands, used a robust variety of leaf, and was fire cured or air cured.
Sometime after the
War of 1812, demand for a milder, lighter, more aromatic tobacco arose.
Ohio and
Maryland both innovated quite a bit with milder varieties of the tobacco plant. Farmers around the country experimented with different curing processes. But the breakthrough didn't come until 1854.
It had been noticed for centuries that sandy, highland soil produced thinner, weaker plants. Captain Abisha Slade, of
Caswell County, North Carolina had a good deal of infertile, sandy soil, and planted the new "gold-leaf" varieties on it. Slade owned a slave, Stephen, who accidentally produced the first real bright tobacco. He used charcoal to restart a fire used to cure the crop. The surge of heat turned the leaves yellow. Using that discovery, Slade developed a system for producing bright tobacco, cultivating on poorer soils and using charcoal for heat-curing.
News spread through the area pretty quickly. The worthless sandy soil of the
Appalachian
piedmont was suddenly profitable, and people rapidly developed flue-curing techniques, a more efficient way of smoke-free curing. By the outbreak of the War, the town of
Danville, Virginia actually had developed a bright-leaf market for the surrounding area in
Caswell County, North Carolina and Pittsylvania County, Virginia.
Danville was also the main railway head for
Confederate soldiers going to the front. These brought bright tobacco with them from Danville to the lines, traded it with each other and Union soldiers, and developed quite a taste for it. At the end of the war, the soldiers went home and suddenly there was a national market for the local crop. Caswell and Pittsylvania counties were the only two counties in the South that experienced an
increase in total wealth after the war.
White burley
In 1864, George Webb of
Brown County, Ohio planted Red Burley seeds he had purchased, and found that a few of the seedlings had a whitish, sickly look. He transplanted them to the fields anyway, where they grew into mature plants but retained their light color. The cured leaves had an exceedingly fine texture and were exhibited as a curiosity at the market in
Cincinnati. The following year he planted ten acres from seeds from those plants, which brought a premium at auction. The air-cured leaf was found to be mild tasting and more absorbent than any other variety.
White Burley, as it was later called, became the main component in chewing tobacco, American blend pipe tobacco, and American-style cigarettes. The white part of the name is seldom used today, since red burley, a dark air-cured variety of the mid-1800s, no longer exists.
Shade tobacco
It is not well known that the northern US state of
Connecticut is also one of the important tobacco-growing regions of the country. Long before
Europeans arrived in the area, Native Americans harvested wild tobacco plants that grew along the banks of the
Connecticut River. Today, the Connecticut River valley north of
Hartford,
Connecticut is known as Tobacco Valley, and the fields and drying sheds are visible to travelers on the road to and from
Bradley Field, the major Connecticut
airport. The tobacco grown here is known as shade tobacco, and is used as outer wrappers for some of the world's finest
cigars.
Early Connecticut
colonists acquired from the Native Americans the habit of smoking tobacco in pipes and began cultivating the plant commercially, even though the Puritans referred to it as the "evil weed". The plant was outlawed in Connecticut in 1650, but in the 1800s as cigar smoking began to be popular, tobacco farming became a major industry, employing farmers, laborers, local youths, southern African Americans, and migrant workers.
Working conditions varied from pleasant summer work for students, to backbreaking exploitation of migrants. Each tobacco plant yields only 18 leaves useful as cigar wrappers, and each leaf requires a great deal of individual manual attention after harvesting, some of which must be carried out in the drying sheds, where the temperature exceeds 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
In 1921, Connecticut tobacco production peaked, at 31,000 acres under cultivation. The rise of
cigarette smoking and the decline of cigar smoking has caused a corresponding decline in the demand for shade tobacco, reaching a minimum in 1992 of 2,000 acres under cultivation. Since then, however, cigar smoking has become more popular again, and in 1997 tobacco farming had risen to 4,000 acres . The industry has weathered some major catastrophes, including a devastating
hailstorm in 1929, and an epidemic of brown spot fungus in 2000.
Perique
Perhaps the most strongly-flavored of all tobaccos is the Perique, from
Saint James Parish,
Louisiana. When the Acadians made their way into this region in 1776, the
Choctaw and
Chickasaw tribes were cultivating a variety of tobacco with a distinctive flavor. A farmer called Pierre Chenet is credited with first turning this local tobacco into the Perique in 1824 through the technique of pressure-fermentation.
The tobacco plants are manually kept suckerless, and pruned to exactly 12 leaves, through their early growth. In late June, when the leaves are a dark, rich green and the plants are 24-30 inches tall, the whole plant is harvested in the late evening and hung to dry in a sideless curing barn. Once the leaves have partially dried, but while still supple , any remaining dirt is removed and the leaves are moistened with water and stemmed by hand. The leaves are then rolled into "torquettes" of approximately 1 pound and packed into
hickory whiskey barrels. The tobacco is then kept under pressure using oak blocks and massive screw jacks, forcing nearly all the air out of the still-moist leaves. Approximately once a month, the pressure is released, and each of the torquettes is "worked" by hand to permit a little air back into the tobacco. After a year of this treatment, the Perique is ready for consumption, although it may be kept fresh under pressure for many years. Extended exposure to air degrades the particular character of the Perique. The finished tobacco is dark brown, nearly black, very moist with a fruity, slightly vinegary aroma.
Considered the
truffle of
pipe tobaccos, the Perique is used as a component of many blended pipe tobaccos, but is too strong to be smoked pure. At one time, the freshly moist Perique was also chewed, but none is now sold for this purpose. Less than 16 acres of this crop remain in cultivation, most by a single farmer called Percy Martin, in Grande Pointe, Louisiana. For reasons unknown, the particular flavor and character of the Perique can only be acquired on a small triangle of Saint James Parish, less than 3 by 10 miles . Although at its peak, Saint James Parish was producing around 20 tons of the Perique a year, output is now merely a few barrelsful.
While traditionally a pipe tobacco , the Perique may now also be found in the Perique cigarettes of Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co., in an approximately 1 part to 5 blend with lighter tobaccos. A similar tobacco, based on pressure-fermented
Kentucky tobacco is available by the name Acadian Green River Perique.
Oriental Tobacco
Oriental tobacco is a sun-cured, highly aromatic, small-leafed variety that is grown in
Turkey,
Greece,
Bulgaria, and
Macedonia. Oriental tobacco is frequently referred to as "Turkish tobacco", as these regions were all historically part of the
Ottoman Empire. Many of the early brands of cigarettes were made mostly or entirely of Oriental tobacco; today, its main use is in blends of pipe and especially cigarette tobacco .
Tobacco products
Snuff
Snuff is a generic term for fine-ground smokeless tobacco products. Originally the term referred only to dry snuff, a fine tan dust popular mainly in the eighteenth century. This is often called "Scotch Snuff", a folk-etymology
derivation of the scorching process used to dry the cured tobacco by the factory.
European snuff is intended to be
sniffed up the nose. Snuff is not "snorted" due to the fact that snuff shouldn't get past the nose i.e.; into sinuses, throat or lungs. European snuff comes in several varieties: Plain, Toast , "Medicated" , Scented and Schmalzler The major brand names of European snuff are: Bernards , Fribourg & Treyer , Gawith , Gawith Hoggarth , Hedges , Lotzbeck , McChrystal's , Pöschl and Wilsons of Sharrow .
Snuff has even been found to be beneficial in some cases of hay fever due to the fact that the snuff may prevent allergens from getting to the mucus membrane within the nose.
American snuff is much stronger, and is intended to be dipped. It comes in two varieties -- "sweet" and "salty". Until the early 20th century, snuff dipping was popular in the United States among rural people, who would often use sweet barkless twigs to apply it to their gums. Popular brands are Tube Rose and
Navy.
The second, and more popular in North America, variety of snuff is moist snuff, or dipping tobacco. This practice is known as "dipping." In the Southern states, taking a "dip" of moist snuff is called "putting a rub in," the moist snuff in the mouth is known as a "rub." This is occasionally referred to as "snoose" in New England and the Midwest and is derived from the Scandinavian word for snuff, "
snus". Like the word, the origins of moist snuff are Scandinavian, and the oldest American brands indicate that by their names. American Moist snuff is made from dark fire-cured tobacco that is ground, sweetened, and aged by the factory. Prominent North American brands are
Copenhagen,
Skoal, Timber Wolf, Chisholm, Grizzly, and
Kodiak. American moist snuff tends to be dipped.
Some modern
smokeless tobacco brands, such as Kodiak, have an aggressive nicotine delivery. This is accomplished with a higher dose of nicotine than cigarettes, a high
pH level , and a high portion of unprotonated nicotine.
It has been suggested by
The Economist is a weekly news and international affairs publication of The Economist Newspaper Ltd ...
magazine that the
ban on smoking tobacco indoors in some areas, such as Britain and
New York City, may lead to a resurgence in the popularity of snuff as an alternative to tobacco smoking. Although the large-scale closure of British
mines in the 1980s deprived the snuff industry of its major market since snuff became unfashionable , sales at Britain's largest snuff retailer have reportedly been rising at about 5% per year.
Chewing tobacco
Chewing is one of the oldest ways of consuming tobacco leaves. Native Americans in both North and South America chewed the leaves of the plant, frequently mixed with lime. Modern chewing tobacco is produced in three forms: twist, plug, and scrap. A few manufacturers in the
United Kingdom produce particularly strong twist tobacco meant for use in
smoking pipes rather than chewing. These twists are not mixed with lime although they may be flavored with whisky, rum, cherry or other flavors common to pipe tobacco.
Twist is the oldest form. One to three high-quality leaves are braided and twisted into a rope while green, and then are cured in the same manner as other tobacco. Originally devised by sailors due to fire hazards of smoking at sea; and until recently this was done by farmers for their personal consumption in addition to other tobacco intended for sale. Modern twist is occasionally lightly sweetened. It is still sold commercially, but rarely seen outside of
Appalachia. Popular brands are Mammoth Cave, Moore's Red Leaf, and Cumberland Gap. Users cut a piece off the twist and chew it, expectorating.
Plug chewing tobacco is made by pressing together cured tobacco leaves in a sweet syrup. Originally this was done by hand, but since the second half of the
19th century leaves were pressed between large tin sheets. The resulting sheet of tobacco is cut into plugs. Like twist, consumers sometimes cut, but more often bite off a piece of the plug to chew. Major brands are Days O Work and Cannonball.
Scrap, or looseleaf chewing tobacco, was originally the excess of plug manufacturing. It is sweetened like plug tobacco, but sold loose in bags rather than a plug. Looseleaf is by far the most popular form of chewing tobacco. Popular brands are
Red Man, Beechnut, Mail Pouch and Southern Pride. Looseleaf chewing tobacco can also be dipped.
During the peak of popularity of chewing tobacco in the Western
United States in the late 19th century,
spittoons were a common device for users to spit into.
Snus
Swedish
snus is different in that it is made from steam-cured tobacco, rather than fire-cured, and its
health effects are markedly different, with epidemiological studies showing dramatically lower rates of cancer and other tobacco-related health problems than cigarettes, American "
Chewing Tobacco", Indian
Gutka or African varieties. Prominent Swedish brands are
Swedish Match,
Ettan, and Tre Ankare. In the Scandinavian countries, moist snuff comes either in loose powder form, to be pressed into a small ball or ovoid either by hand or with the use of a special tool. It is sometimes packaged in small bags, suitable for placing inside the upper lip, called "portion snuff". In the United States, the Skoal brand of moist snuff distributes a similar product, packed with standard american moist snuff, often flavored with fruits or liquors; these small bags are called "Skoal Bandits." These small bags keep the loose tobacco from becoming lodged between the user's teeth; they also generate less spittle when in contact with mucous membranes inside the mouth which extends the usage time of the tobacco product.
Since it is not smoked, snuff in general generates less of the nitrosamines and other carcinogens in the tar that forms from the partially anaerobic reactions in the smoldering smoked tobacco. The steam curing of snus rather than fire-curing or flue-curing of other smokeless tobaccos has been demonstrated to generate even fewer of such compounds than other varieties of snuff; 2.8 parts per mil for
Ettan brand compared to as high as 127.9 parts per mil in American brands, according to a study by the State of
Massachusetts Health Department. It is hypothesized that the widespread use of snus by Swedish men , displacing tobacco smoking and other varieties of snuff, is responsible for the incidence of tobacco-related mortality in men being significantly lower in Sweden than any other European country. In contrast, since women are much less likely to use snus, their rate of tobacco-related deaths in Sweden is similar to that in other European countries. Snus is clearly less harmful than other tobacco products; according to Kenneth Warner, director of the
University of Michigan Tobacco Research Network,
- "The Swedish government has studied this stuff to death, and to date, there is no compelling evidence that it has any adverse health consequences. ... Whatever they eventually find out, it is dramatically less dangerous than smoking."
Public health researchers maintain that, nevertheless, even the low nitrosamine levels in snus cannot be completely risk free, but snus proponents maintain that inasmuch as snus is used as a substitute for smoking or a means to quit smoking, the net overall effect is positive, similar to the effect of nicotine patches, for instance. Snus is banned in the
European Union countries outside of Sweden . Although this is officially for health reasons, it is widely regarded, in fact, as being for economic reasons, since other smokeless tobacco products associated with much greater risk to health are sold too.
Although it lacks the carcinogenicity of high levels of nitrosamines, however, any harmful effects of nicotine will still be seen with snus usage. Current research concentrates on nicotine's effect on the circulatory system and on the pancreas.
On June 11, 2006,
Reynolds Tobacco announced that it would be test marketing Camel brand snus in
Portland, Oregon and
Austin, Texas by the end of the month. The product would be manufactured in Sweden, in conjunction with
British American Tobacco, manufacturers of BAT snus.
Gutka
Gutka 
