[steeleyespan]

There's some studies suggesting nordic Snus (like all natural chew w/o chemicals added) is fairly harmless. Anecdotally I've read people highly addicted to it, so very suspicious of any claim that nicotine itself isn't addictive and just smoking is.

[Findecanor]

Snus is quite common in my country, Sweden. Many users are former smokers who "quit" by using snus instead as their source of nicotine. Users I know have said that they feel that it is highly addictive.

Studies of snus users have indicated increased risks of cancer in the mouth, throat and gastrointestinal system but have not been conclusive as to how. There's also a newer type of snus not made from tobacco, with pure nicotine as a separate ingredient, but it has been studied much less.

Nicotine is still widely considered harmful for the cardiovascular system though. I've had two surgeries this past year and been told to not even chew nicotine gum for a week before because of how nicotine in my system could lead to complications.

[steeleyespan]

It appears there are some conflicting studies, like with everything.

My best interpretation is that nicotine itself probably isn't the-worst-thing-ever if it was restricted to occasional usage, like having a beer on the weekend.

It's probably not a good idea to make a habit of though like with coffee.

There's a theory floating around that it may help with long-Covid symptoms, but there's not a lot of evidence. This may be in part due to the general opposition towards tobacco as extremely unhealthy.

I only heard of this because a neighbor says using nicotine gum restored her sense of smell.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9845100/

Again, anecdotally I had a relative, very heavy smoker, who got Delta and had very mild symptoms. She's 80 and in pretty poor health. Others younger in the same household had it much worse.

https://aacijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1322...

[goodluckchuck]

That computes with this article which discusses the addictiveness of naturally occurring MAOIs found in organic tobacco.

[abecedarius]

Does snus have much flavor? I've wondered if the psychological part of nicotine addiction is much stronger when there's a smell/taste association with the drug effect. (I'm not a smoker, just seen a couple hints suggesting this.)

[jddj]

It does. It has a slight burning sensation on the gum (salt?) and has an earthy / spiced flavour.

You don't taste it much unless you consume beer/coffee/water at the same, but if so the right brands and combinations can be quite pleasant.

They also make menthol ones.

[abecedarius]

Thanks, that updates me a bit more towards that hypothesis. I tried to search once for whether unflavored vaping was better than flavored for quitting smoking, but didn't find anything relevant at least back then.