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26 April 2007.
NZ SmokeLess e-News 2:4
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Snuffers live longer
than smokers: snuff sales will decrease tobacco deaths
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Ten basic points on snuff, plus an invitation
to unite around an overarching goal.
Following on from
- SmokeLess New
Zealand’s
e-News 23
April 2007 notifying the test marketing
of snuff, and
- Smokefree
Coalition’s Tobacco Update editorial of 25 April 2007.
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Can tobacco snuff be used to snuff out tobacco
smoking? Fight fire with wet tobacco?
Can continuation
of tobacco addiction be used to avert deaths from smoking?
If we understand how
unburnt tobacco differs from smoke in risks and
chemistry, it begins to make sense. Smoking
is the problem, rather than the tobacco.
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1.
Smokers who switch to snuff live longer than those who continue to
smoke.
Snuff is welcome for two main
reasons:
a) Snuffing is much safer than smoking, - as a recent Ministry of
Health-commissioned report shows.1
b) Addicted smokers have rights
to be told about and to buy alternative products to reduce their risk from
tobacco use. Some smokers are fatally trapped in very serious tobacco
addiction. Despite clear warnings, 4000 annually quit too late. One in two
continuing smokers die many years early.
2)
Sales of snuff will decrease tobacco deaths. Snuff has
5-10% of the risks of smoking.2 Even if all current smokers kept
on smoking, 10 to 20 new users would have to take up snuff for every one
who took up smoking,3 before snuff
could cause more deaths than smoking. This will not happen because:
3)
Snuff popularity has its limits Even where snuff is traditional and
most popular, as in Swedish men, 21% use snuff and 14% smoke, a ratio of only
1.5 to 1.
4)
Snuff has to become popular before it can reduce smoking deaths. Snuff
sales start from zero this week. Its advertising is banned. Some health
groups are opposed.
5)
Dual use. Dual use may occur more to begin with, while smokers
are in the process of switching. Those using snuff but continuing to smoke
(2% in Sweden), smoke
fewer cigarettes and inhale less smoke, as only so much nicotine is needed
each day. Double jeopardy does not apply.
6)
Quitting is safest, and switching is nearly as safe For every 2.5%
of smokers who quit smoking permanently, the cigarette death toll
eventually falls by 100 deaths a year (2.5% of 4000=100). Relapse however,
is common. For every 2.5% of smokers who switched to snuff permanently, the
tobacco death toll overall is reduced nearly as much, by 95-99 deaths per
year.4 Because of addiction to snuff, fewer are likely to
relapse to smoking.
7)
Where is the replacement programme to accompany this product? The
Ministry of Health may wish to revise its soon-to-be-released Smoking Cessation
Guidelines to include this topic. SmokeLess advocates
an addictive warning on snuff. www.smokeless.org.nz/nasalsnuff.htm
8)
Is snuff merely a cigarette replacement for those occasions when smoking is
not permitted?
Snuff means no second-hand smoke. Some
smokers may wish to use snuff to stay at their work station and not go
outside to smoke. With every use of snuff, blood nicotine rises, and the urge
to smoke is reduced. Trying snuff is an essential step for smokers to familiarize
themselves with it as a prelude to switching to it.
9)
The only beneficiaries from snuff .. are the tobacco industry?. Snuff makers
hope to develop snuff sales. More importantly, snuff will benefit smokers who
switch to snuff – they stand to live many years longer.
10)
Let’s not lose sight of the prize
The main prize is averting 4000 cigarette
deaths annually, by making smoking less popular and ending cigarette and
smoking tobacco sales. This is SmokeLess New
Zealand’s main aim. Once this is achieved, the cigarette industry will
have nothing to sell.
A
call to end cigarette sales
Cigarettes are currently killing one
New Zealander every two hours, yet no-one apart from SmokeLess
and the Maori Party is asking for cigarette sales to be phased out. As long
as cigarette sales remain legal, cigarette smoking can again become popular
with a new cohort of teenagers.
SmokeLess New
Zealand invites all anti-smoking
groups to work for the achievement of a law to end cigarette sales within
ten years,5 (no ban on personal growing,
possession, or smoking of tobacco), and to unite around this over-arching
goal.
With an agreed goal to end
cigarette sales, the various anti-smoking groups can then choose which
policies they support to reach the goal.
__________________________________________________________________________
1.Broadstock
M. Systematic review of the health effects of modified tobacco products.
http://nzhta.chmeds.ac.nz/publications/smokeless_tobacco.pdf (129pp)
2. Levy DT, Mumford EA,
Cummings KM, et al. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention 2004;
13: 2035-42
3. Kozlowski LT, Strasser AA, Giovino
GA,
et al. Applying the risk/use equilibrium: use medicinal nicotine now
for harm reduction. Tobacco Control 2001;10:201–3.
4. Is quitting entirely better than
switching to snuff? www.smokeless.org.nz/switchingtosnuff.htm
5. Law changes to
end the cigarette smoking mortality epidemic. www.smokeless.org.nz/lawchanges.htm
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With tobacco, as with alcohol, it is how
we use it (in this case smoking it) that is the problem tobacco, as, smoking it)
that is the problem.
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