One of the rooms I was in today had a can of Zyn nicotine
patches on the desk, which got me wondering. Who invented snuff?
Technically speaking the stuff on the desk was chewing
tobacco, not snuff, and there IS a difference.
Snuff is made from
tobacco leaves that have been ground into a fine powder. Pre-Columbian American
inhabitants were the first known snuffers. It's been used in Europe since the
1500s, mostly among the aristocracy, both for enjoyment and for its perceived
medicinal properties. Use has declined sharply over the last hundred years, but
the stuff is still around.
Typically, it is placed between the thumb and the forefinger and
inhaled. Modern snuff comes in a variety
of flavors. It is sniffed quickly into the nostrils, where it produces a
stimulating burn — and a heady nicotine buzz — without the tobacco smoke that's
been banned from many public locations.
The U.S. Surgeon General will not
recommend dry snuff as a safe alternative to other tobacco products, and tins
sold in this country bear the same warning stickers as oral snuff and other
forms of smokeless tobacco.
Snuff is much cheaper than
cigarettes. While a pack of 20 smokes can set you back $7, dry snuff costs
between $2 and $5 for a pocket-size container of about 7 grams. One such tin
can last a regular user several weeks
Chewing tobacco, on the other hand, is typically placed
between the gum and the jaw line, or placed in the mouth and chewed. Unlike dipping tobacco, it is not ground and must be manually crushed with the
teeth to release flavor and nicotine. Unwanted juices are then expectorated (spat) – which is why
many offices in the early part of the 20th century had cuspidors.
Chewing
is one of the oldest methods of consuming tobacco. Indigenous peoples of the Americas in both North
and South America chewed the leaves of the plant long before the arrival of
Europeans, frequently mixed with the mineral lime, in the same way
as coca leaves.
The
southern United States was distinctive for its production of tobacco, which
earned premium prices from around the world. Most farmers grew a little for
their own use, or traded with neighbors who grew it. Commercial sales became
important in the late 19th century as major tobacco companies rose in the
South, becoming one of the largest employers in cities like Winston-Salem,
NC, Durham, NC, and Richmond, VA. Southerners
dominated the tobacco industry in the United States; even a concern as large as
the Helme Tobacco Company, headquartered
in New Jersey, was headed by
former Confederate officer George Washington Helme. In 1938 R.J. Reynolds marketed
eighty-four brands of chewing tobacco, twelve brands of smoking tobacco, and
the top-selling Camel brand
of cigarettes. Reynolds sold large quantities of chewing tobacco, though
that market peaked about 1910.
There
are four main types of chewing tobacco – loose leaf, plug, twist, and chew
bags, all of which are further defined in the article below.
In
the early days of baseball, it became popular because it kept the players’
mouths and gloves moist on the dusty fields they played on. Chewing tobacco,
however, had a nasty side affect – oral cancer.
Bill Tuttle was a Major League player who made a
big name for himself both through baseball and his anti-chewing-tobacco
efforts. Tuttle was an outfielder for the Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Athletics,
and the Minnesota Twins.
He was an avid tobacco chewer; even his baseball cards pictured him with a bulge
in his cheek from the tobacco. Nearly forty years after he began using
smokeless tobacco, Tuttle developed a tumor in his mouth so severe it protruded
through his skin. A few years before he died, Tuttle had many of his teeth, his
jawbone, his gums, and his right cheekbone removed. He also had his taste buds
removed. Tuttle dedicated the last years of his life to speaking with Major
League teams about not using chewing tobacco where television cameras could see
the players so that children could not witness and be influenced by it. He also
dedicated time to the National Spit Tobacco Education Program, which was being
run by friend and former Major League player, Joe Garagiola. Tuttle died July
27, 1998, after a five-year battle with cancer.]
Babe Ruth, perhaps the most famous player of
all time, also died of throat cancer. In the mid-1940s, Ruth was diagnosed
with nasopharyngeal
carcinoma (cancer of the upper throat). The top two causes of
this disease are alcohol and tobacco; Ruth was a heavy user of both.
In 1965, 42% of the American population smoked cigarettes. The
number has decreased ever since, and today is 14% - and is even less for
teenagers. As a result, lung cancer rates have also decreased dramatically as
well.
Smokeless tobacco products, like Juul, have recently become
more popular. However, due to the health issues related to the product, they
are now banned for use by anyone under the age of 21.
I’ve long enjoyed a good cigar, and used to smoke about one a
week on a Saturday afternoon when I was washing the cars or cutting the grass.
Today, it’s usually a maximum of 3 a year – Father’s day, on my birthday, and
one other day when the mood strikes me.
I’m pretty sure that I tried chewing tobacco at some point in
my life, but it literally has been decades since I’ve done so. If you’ve got a
hankering for chewing tobacco, here’s my advice:
Spit it out.
No comments:
Post a Comment