The Products of Tobacco
The most popular form of tobacco people use today is cigarettes. This is followed by dip or snuff, as some people call it. Then, there is chewing tobacco which has been around for thousands of years. Cigars came back into popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s after being extremely popular in the 1800s. And, finally, pipe tobacco, i.e. tobacco that is smoked through a pipe.
Dip or snuff is tobacco that is either powdered, cut like fine grain or cut like short strings and "dipped" between the lower lip and gums.
Powdered snuff is usually dry and sweet. Today it is mostly used by elderly women. Powdered snuff's most popular brands are Tube Rose, Honey Bee and W.E. Garret. Tobacco that is cut like fine grass is refered to as "fine cut." Tobacco cut like string is called "long cut." Fine cut and long cut dip are usually packaged by the same companies, moist and used by men. The more expensive brands of fine cut and long cut dip are Copenhagen, Kodiak and Skoal. It's less expensive brands are Grizzly, Kayak, Longhorn, Timber Wolf and Husky.
In the days before machine manufacturing, in the 1600s and 1700s, snuff was very expensive to produce, thus mostly used by wealthy people.
Powdered snuff can be inhaled by snorting it up in the nose. In this course, nicotine is delivered through the nasal membranes, the damp skin within the nose. Inhaled snuff is very seldom used today. Taking snuff by mouth allows nicotine to pass through the moist skin of the inner lips and gums. While some people have believed that snuff and other forms of smokeless tobacco are safer then smoking, they are wrong. Researchers have found twenty-eight cancer-causing chemicals in dip/snuff.
One issue with dip is that it actually contains more nicotine then cigarettes. One can of dip has as much nicotine as sixty cigarettes. Blood tests of people who use smokeless tobacco revealed twice as much nicotine in their blood compared to cigarette smokers. This high level of nicotine causes it to be difficult for snuff users to quit.
In 1900, chewing tobacco was the most popular tobacco product in the United States. Chewing tobacco is shredded tobacco leaves. Chewing tobacco is chewed between the gums and cheek like chewing gum. Chewing tobacco delivers nicotine through the skin inside the mouth.
Chewing tobacco lost a lot of popularity in the late 1950s when cigarette came big on the market. Although, it made a bit of a comeback in the 1980s with baseball players and rodeo athletes advertising it.
Chewing tobacco has the same cancer-causing chemicals as snuff. In addition to these, chewing tobacco also contains formaldehyde, a poisonous chemical used to preserve dead flesh and it also contains poisonous metals such as cadmium and lead.
Cigars are chopped tobacco wrapped in tobacco leaves. Cigars were very popular in the 1800s. They, as with chewing tobacco, faded out of popularity in the mid-1900s when cigarettes became the preferred form of tobacco. Cigars also made a comeback in the 1990s when they were used and promoted by Hollywood actors, rappers and rock musicians.
The better brands of cigars can be very expensive as in ten to twenty dollars for one cigar. Less expensive cigars are also available and smoked by middle class people, working class people and young people on tight budgets. Less expensive cigars can be found in smoke shops, convenience stores and grocery stores. The most popular brands of cigars for common people are Dutch Masters, While Owl, Philly and Black and Mild. Cigars have particularly become popular among young people since the turn of the century. The American Cancer Society's facts and figures for 2003, found that 15% of American high school students tried cigars in the last month. The figures were 22% for boys and 9% for girls. In some parts of North America young people prefer cigars over cigarettes.
Some people also believe that cigars are less dangerous then cigarettes because smoke is not inhaled in the lungs. Cigar smoking still presents many health risks. Male cigar smokers are about 33% more likely to get cancer than nonsmokers. In cigar smoking the nicotine is inhaled through the mucous membranes of the mouth. Therefore, cigar smokers have a particular risk of cancer to the mouth. They also risk getting esophagus (throat) cancer and larynx (voice box) cancer. Their chances of getting mouth; esophagus and larynx cancer is four to ten times higher then nonsmokers.
Pipe tobacco is loose leaf tobacco that is fire-cured and then placed in a pipe for smoking. Most pipe tobacco is aromatic, giving the smoked tobacco a depth and richness in taste and smell. As with chewing tobacco and cigars, pipe tobacco dwindled way down in popularity during the mid-1900s when cigarettes exploded in popularity. But pipe tobacco has also made a resurgance since around the year 2010.
Along with cigars, some people think pipe tobacco is a "safe" alternative to cigarettes. While there isn't a lot of scientific data on the health effects of pipe smoking, there are certainly risks. Pipe smokers face an elevated risk of cancers to the mouth, such as: the tongue, larynx and throat. They also have a higher risk of lung, pancreatic and bladder cancer. Smokers of piped tobacco have an increased risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Pipe smokers also have a greater chance of getting heart disease.
Cigarettes are chopped tobacco rolled in paper. Cigarettes are the major selling tobacco product in North America. In 2001, 425 billion cigarettes were smoked in the United States. Because of the large amounts of money involved with cigarettes, the battle over cigarette smoking is the main focus of controlling the use (and diminishing the use) of tobacco.
Leaked documents from tobacco companies revealed that from 1993 to 1998, it cost nineteen cents to make a pack of cigarettes. That means it cost less than one penny to make one cigarette. When this information became public, tobacco companies claimed that they only made eleven cents off of one pack of cigarettes, with so much of the money they made going to state and federal taxes. Even if the companies only made eleven cents a pack, if you multiply that eleven cents by twenty billion packs sold yearly, tobacco companies still made $2.2 billion. That is an impressive amount of money even for the wealthiest of people.
In a 1998 report that was given to the American Cancer Society, researchers’ calculated that tobacco companies profit is closer to thirty cents a pack. If tobacco companies keep making around thirty cents a pack and Americans keep smoking, cigarettes will remain a very profitable business.
One thing that anyone who researches tobacco products must make note of, is the use of smokeless tobacco. And as we mentioned a little while ago, the resurgence of cigars and pipe tobacco. While cigarettes have had a decline in sales, smokeless tobacco, particularly dip has had increased profit. The U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company, the maker of the brands Skoal and Copenhagen, had described itself as "the leading producer and marketer of the only growing segment of the U.S. tobacco industry."
While snuff also faded away in popularity in the mid-1900s when cigarettes came big on the tobacco scene, many people in the 1970s were once again giving snuff a try when the health hazards of cigarettes were being exposed. Companies renamed their products "smokeless tobacco", insinuating they were safter than cigarettes. The biggest profiter of this move was the U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company. They were previously known as Weyman & Bros. Tobacco, named after George Weyman who invented Copenhagen Snuff. The name of the company was changed to entice tobacco users to dip or chew that didn't want the health effects of smoking. Today, US. Smokeless Tobacco Company manufactures Copenhagen, Husky, Red Seal and Skoal. The company also produces WB Extra Long Cut chewing tobacco.
Smokeless tobacco was promoted heavily with the help of baseball players, NASCAR drivers and rodeo athletes. Throughout the 1980s, dip/snuff soared in popularity. Between 1972 and 1991, consumption of smokeless tobacco products tripled in the United States. In 1991, eight times as many seventeen to nineteen-year-olds used smokeless tobacco compared to users of the same age in 1972. According to the 2002 National Survey on Drug Use & Health, an estimated 7.8 million Americans used smokeless tobacco. Monitoring The Future, an annual health survey of young people, found that more than 11% of eighth-graders and 17% of high school seniors used smokeless tobacco in 2003.
As we've consistently stated, some people believe that smokeless tobacco is safer than smoking. This was heavily believed in the 1970s and 1980s. Teenagers believed this strongly, as well. A 1994 report by the surgeon general found that 77% of students considered smoking to be hazardous, while only 40% felt that smokeless tobacco was harmful to health.
When using smokeless tobacco, users don't draw poisonous smoke into their lungs, so there is no potential for lung cancer. But, smokeless tobacco has many other health consequences. About thirty thousand Americans are diagnosed with oral cancer every year. About 75% of these cases are traced back to tobacco. According to the American Cancer Society, almost one-half of the people diagnosed will be dead in five years.
There is less of a cancer risk with smokeless tobacco than cigarettes, but dippers and chewers are still endangering their health. Death rates for oral cancer haven't improved much since 1980 and oral cancers often metastasize before they're discovered. In nearly 70% of oral cancer cases, the cancer has spread to lymph nodes and possibly even farther through the body by the time a diagnosis is made.
Smokeless tobacco usually causes its user cosmetic damage, as well. Teeth go yellow, decay and then can fall out. Gum tissue goes red and peels off. Chewers and dippers can also get bleeding gums, sores, receding gums and gum disease.
Smokeless tobacco users can also get white sores. These white sores are called leukoplakia. They can cause cancer if they are not dealt with right away. And having surgery because of oral cancer can be disfiguring. Unless the cancer is caught early, surgeons have to take out large sections of a person's mouth, jaw or tongue.
One of the most prominent lawsuits that was filed because of death from tobacco, wasn't a case that involved cigarettes but dip. Betty Marsee brought a $142.9 million lawsuit against U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company. Her son, Sean Marsee, died at age nineteen from oral cancer after dipping Copenhagen for six years.
As we've already mentioned, it's been shown that smokeless tobacco users carry a higher level of nicotine in their system than smokers. Living with a higher dose of any drug means the user's addiction is stronger.
It seems as though some middle-age and elderly people have switched to dipping or chewing from cigarettes because smoking has been banned in so many public places. Most places of employment don't allow people to smoke. Most restaurants, shopping centers and even sidewalks in inner cities have banned smoking. This has left people with nicotine cravings looking for an alternative to cigarettes.