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Spit Tobacco

What is Spit Tobacco?

Snuff is ground or finely shredded tobacco flavored with various sweet or salty addititves. It is placed between the cheek and gum. Chewing tobacco is more coarsely shredded tobacco, also often flavored, and sold as loose leaves. Plug is tobacco leaf cured in molasses or other syrup, then pressed in sheets and cut into blocks or plugs. Snuff, chewing tobacco, and plug tobaccos have more aggressive nicotine delivery than cigarettes due to high pH (alkalinity) of the mixture. One dip or chew delivers five times the nicotine of a single cigarette (National Spit Tobacco Education program: www.nstep.org). All forms of spit tobacco release nicotine rapidly into the oral cavity where it is readily absorbed by the mucosa to provide a quick nicotine high. As a result, it is very addictive.

Health Effects

Tobacco companies market these forms as "smokeless tobacco," implying that they are less harmful than smoking. This is not true. In addition to nicotine, spit tobacco contains 28 known carcinogens, not to mention other poisons including formaldehyde, cyanide, arsenic, benzene, and lead (www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheets/Tobacco/smokeless). Spit tobacco is the main risk factor for cancers of the oral cavity (lips, tongue, cheeks, gums, and palate). The American Cancer Society estimates that spit tobacco users are 50 times more likely to develop cancer of the oral cavity than non-users. There were 96 new cases of cancer of the oral cavity diagnosed in Montana in 2003 and 22 deaths from cancer of the oral cavity in Montana in 2004 (Montana Tumor Registry). Spit tobacco use is also a cause of gum disease, recession and tooth loss.

Montana Facts and Figures

  • Montana adult males use spit tobacco at a rate that is almost double the national average (12% compared to 8%). (ATS, 2006)
  • In 2006, the Montana Prevention Needs Assessment found that, among adolescents in grades 8, 10, and 12, 17% smoked and 15% of males used smokeless tobacco.
  • Twenty-two percent of 12th grade males currently use spit tobacco. (PNA, 2006)

Montana Outlook

While smoking is the predominate source of death and disease from tobacco use, spit tobacco use represents an issue of growing public health concern.  Spit tobacco has not received the degree of attention that smoking has, largely because the national agenda and the existing research base has focused primarily on smoking-related behavior and disease. Unfortunately, Montana is one of the states in which spit tobacco use is much more common than the in rest of the nation, and therefore, leadership on Montana’s part will be necessary to illuminate the issues and solutions surrounding the use of these deadly product.

For 2006-2007, the Spit Tobacco Use Prevention Strategic Initiative (Strategic Initiative) is a proposed action plan for Montana to initiate a comprehensive approach for preventing spit tobacco use.   The Strategic Initiative is a one-year action plan, and should be viewed as a pilot effort.  This effort will be evaluated for its effectiveness and focus to help drive a plan for subsequent years.  Any evaluation of this effort should acknowledge that the strategies set forth in this document are written from a static point in a rapidly evolving environment of spit tobacco and that further action should reflect the changes occurring in the arena of spit tobacco use prevention strategies.  Adaptability is a key concept for this approach.

New resources and new public polices have combined to make the Strategic Initiative appropriate and necessary.  MTUPP will continue to advocate for strategies that promote a model to reduce smoking and help eliminate public exposure to tobacco smoke, while also addressing spit tobacco use, to accomplish its overall mission of ending premature death and preventable disease from commercial tobacco use.

Harm Reduction Policy

2006-2007 Spit Tobacco Use Prevention Strategic Initiative

References for Spit Tobacco protocols include:

  • National Cancer Institute, Cancer Facts; Smokeless Tobacco and Cancer: Questions and Answers
  • National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research
  • National Cancer Institute, Cancer Control and Population Sciences: Tobacco Control Research; Smokeless Tobacco: Quitting
  • Enough Snuff:  A Guide for Quitting Smokeless Tobacco, Herbert H. Severson, PhD, Applied Behavior Science Press, Sixth Edition

Online Resources

              
 

Page last updated 07/24/2007