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Because snus is not fire-cured like traditional tobacco, and not burned and inhaled like cigarettes, it is being touted as a safer alternative to smoking...

Add to the list of "innovations" the world does not need: smokeless, chewless and spitless tobacco.

Snus (rhymes with moose) is currently being test-marketed by Imperial Tobacco in Edmonton. It’s sold in about 230 retail outlets in the city, under the brand name du Maurier. Look for it in the fridge, near the Red Bull.

Snus, or Swedish snuff, is a moist powder tobacco product packaged in miniature tea bags. The bags are placed between the teeth and upper lip and held there for minutes or hours, while they slowly release nicotine.

Because snus is not fire-cured like traditional tobacco, and not burned and inhaled like cigarettes, it is being touted as a safer alternative to smoking.

"We believe the responsible position is to seek out and offer products that may substantially reduce health risks. Harm reduction is what any responsible company strives to do," Benjamin Kemball, president and chief executive officer of Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd., told the Edmonton Sun.That’s pretty rich coming from a corporation whose bottom line depends on the inveterate peddling of poison and the promotion of lifelong addiction to its brands.

It’s also eerily reminiscent of the unmitigated nonsense tobacco companies used to utter about "light" and "mild" cigarettes. These terms, of course, were designed to deceptively suggest that those cigarettes were somehow safer. They were not, and the terminology has effectively been banned.Snus is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a healthy product. To suggest that it is an effective harm-reduction tool is a perversion of the principle, though some argument can be made that snus may provide a slight benefit to people so addicted to tobacco that they are unable to quit smoking. But so is nicotine gum.

Mr. Kemball told the Edmonton Journal that "there seems to be pretty compelling evidence that this product is significantly less risky."It is true that snus contains fewer nitrosamines - carcinogenic agents that cause mouth cancer - than traditional snuff does. It is true that because there is no combustion and inhalation, snus does not cause lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease the way smoking does. Nor do users exhale secondhand smoke or spit out gobs of chewing tobacco.

It is true too that snus users have higher rates of pancreatic cancer. And that snus contains far more addictive nicotine than cigarettes do.In other words, stuffing steam-cured tobacco bags in your mouth is "healthier" than chewing on fermented tobacco or sticking a flaming stick of tobacco in your mouth and inhaling.That’s a lot like saying being hit by a car hurts less than being hit by a big rig or a train.

Mr. Kemball made much of the Swedish example. Sweden has the highest rate of snus use in the world - for historical reasons. It was also the first European country to bring its smoking rate below 20 per cent, and it has the lowest rate of lung cancer in the world. "The facts speak for themselves," Mr. Kemball said.

Do they really? To suggest that lower rates of smoking and cancer are primarily the result of snus use is quite a stretch.Of course, you don’t hear tobacco companies trumpeting Sweden’s punishingly high tobacco taxes, its elaborate anti-smoking campaigns or its workplace safety rules that reduce both smoking and exposure to other carcinogens.

Unlike Sweden (and Norway), Canada does not have a tradition of snus use. Nor does it need one.Canada has 4.5 million smokers, and about 80 per cent of them are addicted to nicotine. The widespread availability of snus would create more nicotine addicts, and provide a marginal benefit to smokers.

Despite the whitewashing and the soft-peddling by Imperial Tobacco, the reality is that snus is not designed to replace cigarette sales, but as an add-on.Smokers will likely stuff these little nicotine-laced bags in their mouths when they are craving a smoke and it’s too cold to go outside, or when they are in public places where there are smoking restrictions.

If smokers are looking to quit, there are many proven methods. This isn’t one of them.Snus is not a smoking cessation aide, it’s a smoking prolongation aide.

It’s also a fairly blatant method of recruiting young people to tobacco. Sell them this seemingly innocuous product that tastes good and provides a nicotine buzz, and in no time they will be lighting up.

That snus is even being allowed on the Canadian market demonstrates the absurdity of the federal Hazardous Products Act, a consumer protection law that features a clause preventing the government from prohibiting tobacco products.Change the law. Snuff out snus.