Does SNUS Provide More Nicotine than Cigarettes?

Many companies consider their brands of smokeless tobacco to be under the snus category, but swedish snus is a medium/high nicotine delivery, low-nitrosamine moist smokeless tobacco product.   So, under that definition, any product that has low nicotine is not really considered snus.  Those products are branded improperly, but are used the same way.

Snus is neatly tucked under the lip, so that nobody knows you are using it.  I guess people feel cool if they say they use snus, even if it isn't snus.  According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, nicotine is readily absorbed into the bloodstream when a tobacco product is chewed, inhaled, or smoked.

Tobacco content

Cigarettes are uniform in size and contain less than 1 gram of tobacco each, while cigars can contain between 1 gram and 20 grams of tobacco.  A single 2 gram dose of a leading brand of Swedish snus gives the user a boost in blood nicotine concentration of around 15 ng/ml within 30 minutes.

Just for the record, a ng or nano gram is 0.001 micrograms and a microgram is 0.001 milligrams and a milligram is 0.001 grams and 1 teaspoon = 4.93 ml.   Although I may not be right in my calculation, that really sounds like a very small amount of nicotine to me.


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There have been studies done on the usage of snus and snus use has had a profound effect on smoking prevalence and lung cancer mortality rates among Swedish men, according to the NCBI, National Center for Biotechnological Information.  While it cannot be proven that snus would have the same effect in other European countries, the potential reduction in smoking-attributable deaths is considerable by using snus.

Smokeless tobacco does not help you quit nicotine

Although, switching to smokeless tobacco if you are trying to stop using cigarettes is not a safe alternative.  The Mayo Clinic says that while smokeless tobacco may be safer than cigarettes, smokeless tobacco hasn't been shown to help you stop smoking.  In fact, you may end up using both cigarettes and smokeless tobacco.   West Virginia University School of Medicine, reviewed the pharmacological smokeless tobacco cessation studies and also reported that; overall, nicotine replacement therapy has shown a lack of an effect to date.

White sore in mouth could lead to cancer

Leukoplakia is very common among smokeless tobacco users and the American Cancer Society is very familiar with it.  Leukoplakia is a white sore or patch in the mouth that can become cancer. Study after study has found high rates of leukoplakia at the place in the mouth where users place the "chew."  These are precancerous lesions, which means these lesions could lead to cancer.  These lesions generally go away a couple of months after the use of smokeless tobacco ceases, but there is always the chance that the lesion won't go away.

The National Cancer Institute has created a smokeless tobacco fact sheet, including the common names, country the product is used in and brand names.


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