Is smokeless safer?
6/14/2004 Los Angeles, CA Valerie Reitman, Times Staff Writer The Los Angeles Times A growing number of anti-smoking researchers and public health advocates are adopting a tack that not long ago would have been considered heresy: suggesting that hard-core smokers who can't kick the habit would be better off switching to new smokeless tobacco products. With slogans such as "Spit-free" and "For when you can't smoke," these products differ markedly from the messy snuff and chewing tobacco stereotypes associated with your granddaddy's spittoon or certain pro baseball players' stuffed cheeks. They are clean, discreet, last about 30 minutes and come in mint, wintergreen and other flavors. Some go down easily, dissolving much like a breath mint, while others look like tiny tobacco-filled teabags, tucked into the side of the mouth and discarded like chewing gum. Though no one is calling the products "safe" — any tobacco that has been cured contains some carcinogens — numerous epidemiological studies have shown that smokeless tobacco is far less likely to cause any type of cancer, including oral cancer, than cigarettes. "If someone can't quit smoking, there is no question that smokeless is much safer. It doesn't cause heart or lung disease, and if it does cause cancer, it does so at a much lower rate," said Dr. Neal Benowitz, a professor of medicine at UC San Francisco and director of its cancer center's Tobacco Control Program. Gary Giovino, director of the Tobacco Control Research Program at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, [...]