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Snus is pushed under the upper lip. There it can cause the gums to retract. Image: shutterstock
Snus imports explode: “This makes young people addicted”
Companies have actively promoted their nicotine packages since legalization. One manufacturer even gives away sweet snus, which has been criticized.
Scene at a newsstand in the city of Zurich: a young woman gives away boxes of snus flavored with berries. There is also a flyer titled “Smoke Free Nicotine – What is it?” Snus are bags that contain nicotine that you can clip under your upper lip. In the past, they were practically only known in Sweden, now oral tobacco is spreading in Switzerland.
Imports are skyrocketing. Since 2009, imports of chew, roll and snuff products from Sweden have increased tenfold. Snus is not recorded separately at customs from imports worth more than 20 million francs in 2019 from Sweden, but the vast majority is likely to be the Nordic addictive substance. Sweden is the main producer of snus.
New target group: youth and women
The basis for the increase in snus imports was laid by resourceful importers who circumvented a ban. Because in reality the introduction and sale of “tobacco products for oral use” was prohibited by the tobacco regulation. Creative statements like chewing or sucking on tobacco helped circumvent the ban.
Last year, the Federal Supreme Court finally struck down the snus ban.. There is no legal basis for banning individual luxury foods. The sentence was the starting gun for a snus offensive by the tobacco companies. The kiosk operators installed special coolers to display the round snus jars. The posters advertise the effect of nicotine.
Marketing departments have discovered a new target group. While snus used to be particularly popular with young men from sports like ice hockey or handball, new flavors like “Tropic Gold” or “Wild Purple” are now geared toward young women. White snus packets with artificial nicotine also replace the brown tobacco packets of the past.
The advertising campaign is poorly received by prevention experts: “Tobacco producers have always tried to attract the youngest audience possible to turn young people into addicts and therefore permanent buyers”, says Markus Meury of the Addiction Foundation Switzerland. The Lung League is demanding that such promotions be banned and regrets that this is not provided for in the Tobacco Products Act, which is in parliament.
Non-smokers also use cigarette substitutes
The distribution of sweet snus at the kiosk takes place in around 400 outlets in Switzerland and lasts up to four weeks, according to a spokesperson for British American Tobacco. In the advertising brochure for the wild berry flavor, snus is promoted as an alternative to smoking.
The tobacco company explains the distribution campaign as a “harm reduction approach” that should give adult nicotine users the opportunity to “try a smoke-free, more discreet and less harmful alternative to smoking and, if necessary, change it. “
However, non-smokers also use the trend product. An example of this is Andrea (name changed), a thirty-year-old Swiss sportswoman. About eight years ago she liked snus through friends who imported it directly from Sweden. But she only developed an addiction when cans of snus were also offered on Swiss newsstands. “It made me feel bad at first, but now I put snus under my lip,” she says.
Gum pain, but healthier than smoking
Dentists are now noticing the snus boom, too. Snus users come to the office with sore or shrunken gums. “We are seeing more receding gums and more leukoplakia,” says Christoph Ramseier, a periodontic dentist at the University of Bern.
Leukoplakia are whitish changes in the mucous membranes that occur in many snus users where the pouch is placed. In rare cases, it can turn into cancer. However, previous studies have not shown a statistical association between tobacco and cancer.
The white areas on the oral mucous membrane may recede after stopping snus, but the gum disease remains. “Last but not least, it should be emphasized that snus (like other smoke-free tobacco products) makes you addicted to nicotine,” says dentist Christoph Ramseier.
British American Tobacco writes that Swedish men, among whom snus use has been significantly more widespread than tobacco use for over a century, are the least likely to contract tobacco-related illnesses in a European comparison. The product also has the advantage that it can also be consumed under the crown mask.
Andrea, the snus user, wants to quit smoking. “It’s getting too expensive for me,” she says. A bottle costs between 7 and 10 francs. They also offered him a free jar at the kiosk. She rejected it. It was the wrong scent. (aargauerzeitung.ch)
