Colleges Move to Ban Smoking

[Vocalek]

This story appeared in the Health&Science section of the Washington Post today. When I couldn't find it on the Post web site, I did a Google search and discovered it has been published elsewhere before this.

Colleges move to ban smoking from campuses | Deseret News

Ty Patterson, the center's director, says Ozarks quickly realized that its previous policy of allowing smoking in designated outdoor areas was impractical and couldn't be properly enforced.

Forbidding all tobacco use was deemed to be more effective than simply saying no to cigarette smoke, Patterson says.


"When you go smoke-free, you drive smokers to use smokeless tobacco, which is more addictive," he says.

But there was more to the story in the Post, so I added a search term on Google and found the entire story posted here:

Colleges move toward absolute bans on smoking - Gossip Rocks Forum

I wondered about that claim that smokeless is "more addictive" so I went looking for information on that. Apparently it stems from the fact that a smokeless user might take in more nicotine per day than a smoker.

Perhaps the most common misconception about smokeless tobacco in modern timesis that it is healthier, i.e., less damaging and risky, than cigarette smoking. This has contributed to many parents tolerating their children's use of smokeless tobacco, believing it to be a more wholesome alternative to cigarettes. However, this has been shown to be far from the truth. In study after study, researchers have proved that smokeless tobacco is actually more far addictive than cigarettes because of its higher nicotine levels, making the products even harder to stop using. On average, one can of snuff contains as much nicotine as 60 cigarettes. The average habitual smokeless tobacco user will receive 130-250 mg nicotine per day, compared with 180 mg for a person with a pack-a-day cigarette habit.

http://www.faqs.org/health/topics/19/Smokeless-tobacco.html

But is that how you measure "more addictive"? I would think that if smokeless was "more addictive" then smokers would have an easier time in stopping all use of nicotine than smokeless users. But that isn't what has happened in Sweden.

From 1981 to 2007, male smokers dropped from 34% to 12%. Snus use grew from 13% to 19%, with a net effect of total tobacco use being reduced from 47% to 31%.

 

[Stubby]

I knew I had seen an article about this subject. A little searching and I found this

http://rodutobaccotruth.blogspot.com/2012/05/reducing-tobacco-dependence-compelling.html

It makes sense that smokeless tobacco would be easier to quit then smoking. The quicker the hit a product has, in general, the more addictive it is. Smokeless tobacco is a good deal slower to hit than the almost instant hit is cigarettes.

The idea that getting more nicotine with smokeless then smoking, making it more addictive, is pure fantasy. People will self regulate how much nicotine they use depending on the product. If there is more nicotine they will simple use less, or less often.

Nicotine in smokeless also acts a bit different then smoking. It tends to hit slower, but it also last longer without the big spikes and crashes of cigarettes. It's a more even slow drip method. In the end, from all the studies I have read on Swedish snus, the blood nicotine levels are essentially the same as with smoking.