Do snus and e-cigarettes need a health warning?

[Vocalek]

Do snus and e-cigarettes need a health warning? | Jeff Stier | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Great article by Jeff Stier. I look forward to talking with him later this week when Bill Godshall, fellow CASAA board member Greg Conley, and I attend the FDA workshop on Modified Risk tobacco Products.

Compared to cigarettes, most newer tobacco products – including smokeless tobacco (or snus), dissolvable tobacco, and e-cigarettes – are less harmful for the user. In a 2008 report, the World Health Organisation's (WHO) study group on tobacco product regulation (pdf) stated, "There is little question that, in general, smokeless tobacco products are less harmful than combusted tobacco products such as cigarettes." This is because nicotine, while highly addictive, is not particularly bad for you. This is similar to caffeine in sugary soda: it's the excess sugar, not the caffeine, that does the real damage by causing obesity.

As yet, it's unclear how widely available these new products will be, how they will be marketed or how their reduced risks will be communicated. Will companies be allowed, for instance, to make truthful claims about their products' risk profiles? Or will newer, lower-risk products be regulated as harshly as cigarettes, as some are advocating?

Here's the author's bio: http://www.nationalcenter.org/bios/stier.html

And Vickie McKenna's interview with Jeff about the topic of Tobacco Harm Reduction: http://www.conservativeblog.org/amy...nmentspecial-interest-attacks-on-tobacco.html

 

[rothenbj]

I haven't even gotten to the article but I couldn't help laughing at the picture.

The can is los snus (loose packaged as opposed to portioned snus). There are two approaches to using los. You can "bake" it which is compressing it into a solid cylinder with a tool or "hard core" compression with your fingers. Most use portion snus and some who buy los, such as myself, will use empty tea bags, cut to size, to create a portion.

I baked los once. I had it in for awhile and went to get the mail, forgetting I had los in, I unconsciously moved the pris (name for the baked snus cylinder) to the other half of my upper lip. It was instantaneously un-baked. A mouthful of dirt like tobacco is not a pleasant experience and you really don't want to smile at anyone afterward.

I stick strictly to portions and accept, occasionally, to have a bag malfunction. Now back to the article.

 

[Vocalek]

I have uploaded the video that PlaceboEffect took of Jeff's testimony to the FDA at the MRTP public workshop.

CASAAmedia's Channel - YouTube

And just noticed that my own testimony starts at 4:37.