• The New York Times, Wednesday, October 3, 2007 10:30 AM

Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco are test-marketing a moist ground tobacco popular in Sweden called snus--rhymes with "loose"--that a user tucks between the cheek and the gum. Unlike chewing tobacco and moist smokeless tobacco, snus requires no spitting. Snus contains nitrosamines, the same cancer-causing chemicals in cigarettes, but at lower levels. Snus also contains nicotine, which doctors say has dangerous metabolic effects.

Thanks partly to the popularity of snus, advocates say Sweden has the lowest smoking rates in Europe. It also has fewer incidences than its neighbors of smoking-related diseases. But critics claim smokeless tobacco is a Trojan horse, enabling companies to hold on to customers who might otherwise quit their tobacco habit outright.

"There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that smokers are able to switch to smokeless tobacco and remain switched," says Thomas Glynn, the director of cancer science and trends at the American Cancer Society. Still, Glynn also believes that if every smoker in the United States were to switch to smokeless tobacco, there would be "fewer cancers and less heart disease."

Read the whole story at The New York Times »