Snus

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  Nowadays, one in five snus users in Sweden is a woman. The higher acceptance of snus in Sweden has been driven in part by changing social mores and the knowledge of health risks associated with smoking tobacco.

• The word snus, essentially new to the English language is fast becoming a known household word in the USA. There’s a variety of producers of snus (pronounced snews or snooose) but when it comes to the word’s as well as the product’s true origins there’s little doubt where it comes from: Sweden. We Asked Elliot Eliades at Swedish Match North America in Richmond what makes Swedish snus better.

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  One third of Swedish men in certain age groups use the product - Detail from an ad on a popular Swedish jeans brand where the bump in the back pocket becomes part of a message.

• It comes in tiny, porous paper pouches, stacked inside round, palm-sized packages. Carefully chilled (the Swedish way – where freshness is vital), Swedish snus is ground, cured, aged and flavored tobacco that’s suckled gently in the mouth to enjoy the rush and pleasure of nicotine without smoking. The pouches are inserted under the upper lip, leaving a small visible bump that’s common among nearly a quarter of Swedish men (and quite a few Swedish women too).
  Tobacco-related illnesses kill close to 500,000 people every year in the USA. That is, tobacco that’s burned, smoked and inhaled one way or another, not, in as far as has been scientifically proven so far, snus. Snus is by many researchers considered a 98% safer alternative to smoking.