SNUFF (SMOKELESS TOBACCO)

There are several avenues open to a person who wants to consume tobacco i.e., cigarette smoking, cigar smoking, pipe smoking, chewing tobacco or "snuff dipping".

Smokeless tobacco carries 19 types of nitrosamines, substances known to cause cancer. It is especially rich in two of the most potent nitrosamines known as NNN and NNK. A person who dips snuff takes in about 12 times the amount of NNN and more than five times the amount of NNK consumed by a smoke. Snuff also contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, known as carcinogens.

Tobacco chewing or 'Snuff dipping' (sucking sachets of moist, flavoured snuff, which are held in the mouth to give a nicotine 'jolt' without smoking) is positively correlated to the appearance of cancer in the oral tissues such as the tongue, cheek, floor of the mouth, palate and lips.

In a US study of women with oral cancer, epidemiologists (NB. Check meaning and add), found that the disease took an unusually high toll in the southeastern stat4s, where tobacco-chewing and dipping are more common. They found that women in North Carolina who dipped had four times the risk of developing oral cancer compared to women who never sued tobacco. Most striking was the correlation between dipping and cancers of the cheek and gum - the exact points where snuff is placed.

Dentists have shown that chewing tobacco and snuff causes the gums to recede from the teeth. Caking and scaling of the gums is another side effect as is leucoplakia, the appearance of white patches in the mouth.

Smokeless tobacco contains about the same amount of nicotine as the smoked version, although it enters the bloodstream more slowly. Surveys show that addiction and dependency follow; just as they do for cigarettes.

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