Health - No Nicotine in Snuff

[Laudaphun]

Now, before you start laughing at me, I know that there is in fact a good amount of nicotine in your average brand of snuff... I'm not sure what word would be universally known to describe it, but I'm talking about tobacco that is finely ground up and is typically contained in a small can and put in one's lip... I'm not talking about the long cut tobacco which you would put a big wad of in your cheek.

Anyways, my father recently went to the dr. as he has problems with hypertension. He quit smoking a few years ago, but has used nicotine in one form or another almost all of his life... He's almost 50. He see's the dr. every 6 months and this past week his blood pressure was 160/100 or 160/110... somewhere in that range. I've kept telling him that the snuff he chews is not a good thing for his blood pressure. He is under the illusion that snuff is a safe alternative to smoking cigarettes. He always pays me little heed when I tell him he really needs to give some serious consideration to the cessation of his "chewing" as it's called in this part of the country/world. He always ignores me and says something like yah i know I should quit. I gave him a slightly more stern lecture than usual being that he'd been having problems with his B.P. recently and heart disease seems to run rampant in my family.

The dr. told him that if he were to lose weight that his B.P. would probably be normal and that he wouldn't even need to take any medicine at all. So, a few days prior to the visit, he brought home this new diet product containing a blend of various "herbal" ingredients that the pharmacist told him was the latest greatest thing... Ackivar (I'm not sure on the spelling... I cannot find it on the internet so my spelling is very off, however I wll edit this post later today once I go to the store see it on the shelf. I examined the contents of the package and told him not to take it, as it was packed full of herbal stimulants... basically every kind of xanthine i know of. Of course instead of being labeled caffeine, it was labeled guarana, which your average person (like my dad) has no idea what it is. His next appointment was only a few days away and I asked him to promise me not to take it until he went to the dr. and asked about it first.

So, he went to the dr. and claimed that the dr. told him that the product was ok for him to take, but just to not combine it with any caffeine containing products or stimulants of that nature. Being that his B.P. was sufficiently high to warrent the doubling of his current medication, I asked him how the dr. felt about his chewing. He began to avoid the question, until I flat out asked him... "Does he know how much you chew or even that you chew at all?" Apparently I'd caught him off guard as his only response to that was "No", because he didn't think that it was relavent as he didn't smoke anymore.

I was doing some laundry and we began talking about something totally unrelated to his B.P. or tobacco use... actually I think I was telling him about bathing and towels being more coarse on one side than the other and the reasoning behind that, an interesting little bit of info I learned way back in "Health 101".

But anyways I remembered the book they used to teach that health class. I had no particular intention in mind, but I asked him if he would spend a few minutes leafing through it before I left to return to the university. Actually, I ran to grab it before he could answer so I returned with the book and tossed it at him.

I think it's required of most 4-year colleges to take a 2 credit health class as part of the gen. ed. requirements. I'd always been impressed with the value of the information presented to us in that class. I think it should be required of every high school kid, for the sake of people like my father who didn't go to college.

I continued folding my freshly cleaned laundry, when my father suddenly burst out, "You mean there is nicotine in smokeless tobacco?" I was rather dumbfounded by his statement. I said, um..... yaaaah. Then I accused him of playing stupid, telling him there is no way in the world he could have possibly not known there was nicotine in his snuff "smokeless tobacco". He swore up and down he had no idea, and that he thought that nicotine was just from the smoke when you smoked a cigarette. So, I went on to explain to him that nicotine is a naturally occuring substance that is present in all tobacco products. He claimed he thought that he always just thought I wanted him to quit using tobacco for fear of him catching lip/mouth/throat cancer. Even though I study pharmacology, I feel my words hold little weight when I try to explain things to him. He then appeared to be all dumbfounded at the basic information contained in this book about tobacco products and cigarettes vs. smokeless tobacco, etc.

He was aware that nicotine raises blood pressure and seemed to suddenly realize that he basically was constantly under it's effect (as he always has very potent smokeless tobacco in his mouth, although he is able to hide it well.) He then posed the question to me that I could not immediately answer and would have to resort to my reference material to answer. "So if I quit chewing, my blood pressure should drop in 3 days or so them right?" I couldn't answer that question. I know that people suffer withdrawls from nicotine sometimes and that psychological symptoms could create or manifest themselves as physical symptoms. The only thing I could say was that I did not know and that my best guess would be that it would vary a good deal due to a variety of factors.

I'm still not entirely convinced that he truthfully DID NOT know that smokeless tobacco contained nicotine. Perhaps he is starting to realize that he is getting to the age where he needs to start worrying a little more about his health but didn't want to admit so. But he insists that he really didn't know. Has anyone else out there met someone who claimed to think that only some forms of tobacco contained nicotine while others did not? I was formerly addicted to nicotine in all it's forms... snuff or cigarette, it didn't matter to me so long as it was nicotine. I eventually quit smoking as I became quite fond of my father's smokeless tobacco as i liked it much more. It was tough to quit even though I am/was young and my nicotine addiciton was of relatively short duration compared to most people. It was an addiction for me, not a habit. While my father claims it is a habit for him rather than an addiction. I suppose there is a fineline between the two. I just wanted to post this as it completely blew my mind when he told me that after a lifetime of tobacco use in one form or another, he just became aware that his smokeless tobacco contained nicotine. So we will see if he quits I guess, I certainly believe a revalation such as that would provide enough incentive to do so.