Tobacco Smoking Culture in Russia

Russia distinguished itself from its European neighbors by its resounding rejection of tobacco for much of the seventeenth century. A ban introduced by the state in 1627 was not repealed until a full 70 years later by Peter the Great during which the trade and consumption of tobacco products was aggressively penalized with floggings, the slitting of the nostrils and even the death penalty. Yet by the end of the twentieth century, Russia had become the third highest per capita smoking country in the world, smoking now playing a major role in the country's current demographic crisis.

Why Smoking is Popular in Russia?

One of the main reasons of the tobacco popularity is its influence in development of the cultural perception of the smoking individuals.

For example, during much of the nineteenth century, the consumption of tobacco in Russia was associated with the educated people of the upper and middle classes who adopted the habits and mores characteristic of Western-style secular society. The Russian Orthodox Church and, to a lesser but significant extent, the government saw smoking as seditious with regard to religious and social norms of native life.

Associated  with  a  violation  of—or  liberation  from—traditional  social conventions, smoking came to serve as an index of a person’s participation in the modernizing secular society, in which individual life was a matter of personal choice rather than religious prescription, state regulation, social origin, or professional affiliation. The distinction between modernity and tradition was particularly apparent in the attitudes towards smoking from the institution of medicine as opposed to that of the Church. Whereas the Church viewed smoking as sinful, many in medicine regarded it as beneficial if pursued in moderation, prescribing tobacco for a variety of infirmities, such as headaches, toothaches, anxiety, and constipation. Most doctors, appearing in nineteenth-century fiction, tend to smoke tobacco, reflecting the attitudes of their own institution.

Similarly, more than a Century later, during the Cold War, Soviet youth was aligned with romantic ideas of one of the few allowed in the Soviet Union Westerns author’s Ernest Hemingway. Devoted (or not so devoted) members of the Komsomol (your Communists Organization) these boys and girls were trying to leave their lives filled with backpacking trips to wilderness, night bard songs gatherings deep in the woods, and adopted the simple intellectual appearance of their idol: simple and intellectual, with pipe or cigarette in the mouth.

Modern Times Tobacco Consumption

More people smoke in Russia than just about anywhere else in the world. A recent World Health Organization report indicated that 70.1% of Russian men and 26.2% of women are regular smokers. Other reliable recent estimates place male smoking prevalence between 60% and 65%, and female prevalence between 13% and 30%.

The percentage of Russians who smoke has been steadily growing over the last fifteen years, with the rate of growth among women significantly higher than that among men. Breaking down female smokers into ten-year age cohorts reveals a much higher recent increase in the rate of smoking among 25–34-year-olds than in other groups.

New Government Anti-Smoking Steps

In Russia, the government has recently condemned smoking, calling it a “tragedy for the nation.” The government has announced a plan to ban advertising and promotion of cigarettes from 2011 and to introduce a complete ban on smoking in enclosed spaces by 2015.

That will likely to be a rude shock for the country’s 43.9 million smokers. In Russia, where the number of female and teenage smokers has doubled to 20 percent over the last two decades, the law is unlikely to be readily accepted.

“If someone banned me from smoking at a café, I wouldn’t go there,” says Irina. “I don’t understand why we even need a ban? Everyone in Russia smokes. It seems like it would cause an inconvenience for a lot of people.”

The average Russian lights an average of 17 cigarettes a day. Every year 400 billion cigarettes are sold in the country, ranking Russia first in the world in the number of smokers per head. A pack of cigarettes costs less than a dollar, slightly more expensive than a loaf of bread, making it affordable for all. And, unlike in the United States and many West European countries, tobacco in Russia is hardly taxed.

Public awareness campaigns have been increasing in recent years, with messages becoming less subtle. In the Moscow metro, billboards showing a model wearing a dress made of cigarettes (with the caption: “no longer fashionable”) have given way to pictures of a sleeping infant with a cigarette placed on its back and the message: “Smoking in a child’s presence is torture for him.”

The country also slapped “smoking kills” warnings on cigarette packages in an effort to crack down on an addiction that kills up to 500,000 people a year. But the social stigma attached to smoking in Russia doesn’t seem to be the same as in the United States. Rather, cigarettes in Russia are seen as both a passport to and a symbol of a person’s independence and success.

“It’s all marketing,” says Olesya Batog, president of the Consumer Societies Confederation, a nonprofit group in Moscow, and one of Russia’s top specialists on tobacco control. “If you flick through any magazine, you see glamorous Russians who are independent and under no one’s control, they seem to always have a cigarette in one hand and a man in the other.”

With the country now drafting its budget for next year’s anti-tobacco campaign, Russians will need much more than a ban or a warning sign on their pack of cigarettes to rid their habit. “It is stupid to ban things in this country,” says Irina. “Look at the ban on alcohol, it is not like people stopped drinking; no, they found other ways of getting their fix.”

Really, the fight against smoking is a tough one in a nicotine-addicted nation, where in 1990 a shortage of domestic cigarettes led to a "tobacco rebellion" on the streets of Russia's three biggest cities, forcing then-president Mikhail Gorbachev to appeal for an international emergency shipment.

While anti-tobacco bans are considered in various official institutions, not everyone agrees to implement them, even on the government level. Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin is urging his country's citizens to smoke more cigarettes and drink more alcohol, as indulging those habits can apparently help the local economy. Kudrin's unconventional advice comes just as Russia prepares to raise excise duty on both tobacco and alcohol sales -- and higher consumption of both commodities could help lift tax revenues for spending on social services.

"People should understand: Those who drink, those who smoke are doing more to help the state," Kudrin said. "If you smoke a pack of cigarettes, that means you are giving more to help solve social problems such as boosting demographics, developing other social services and upholding birth rates."

Sources and Additional Information:

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20101027/161081713.html?id=

Tobacco in Russian History and Culture: The Seventeenth Century to the Present (Routledge Studies in Cultural History) by Matthew Romaniello and Tricia Starks

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/06/26/us-russia-smoking-idUSTRE65P1E720100626

http://english.pravda.ru/russia/economics/23-03-2011/117295-russia_smoking-0/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/01/russian-minister-urges-ci_n_702173.html

Tobacco Smoking Culture in France

Brief History of Attitude to Tobacco Smoking in France

The use of tobacco has been a big part of French culture. Most common is cigarette smoking. The word Cigarette is French. Nicotine is derived from the name, Jean Nicot, who was a French diplomat that introduced tobacco to France in the 16th century.

The two most popular, Gitanes and Gauloises cigarettes have been the icons in smoking for decades.

A quarter of France's 60 million people smoke, 66,000 die annually and 5,000 die from second hand smoke. It is among the highest of countries world-wide. 39% of adult males smoke and 27% of females in France smoke. More the 40% are between the ages of 18-24.

Since 1976 smoking in France has become stricter and bans have been put into place.  On November 2nd, 1992 France became the first European nation to put a ban on smoking in offices and nightclubs. On February 1st, 2007 France imposed a ban on smoking in French schools, shops, offices and other public places.  On January 2nd 2008 a smoking ban went into effect for bars, restaurants, nightclubs, and cafes. Now smokers must either go into special areas or go outside. These areas are ventilated smoking rooms.  The fine for breaking the no-smoking rule is about $93 for persons and about $198 for the establishment.

City of Lighters

Art Buchwald, a world-class columnist who lived, ate, loved, drank & wrote in Paris for almost 2 decades (post WWII until the Kennedy administration of 1960) died April 2011 at age 81.

A true Paris gourmand, writer, flaneur, and former notorious cigar smoker, known for ruining other peoples meals at Coupole and Tour d'Argent with his awful stogies had some great quotes about Paris / smoking in his Washington Post column. Here are some quotes from his post Adieu to the City of Lighters, written in the last year of his life:

"It is hard to imagine France as a smoke-free country.”

“Only the old movies will show people smoking. If "Casablanca" were filmed today, Humphrey Bogart's nightclub would have signs all over it saying "Sans Fumee" (No Smoking).

“Imagine the hookers in Pigalle standing in doorways, biting their nails.”

“A French friend, Henri Fouquet, said, "When Americans stopped smoking, their culture went downhill. It will happen in France."

Smoking Ban Opposition

Despite an annual smoking-related death toll of 65,000, many French continue to see smoking as chic, sophisticated and romantic. They point out that most of the icons of modern French culture, from Jean-Paul Sartre to Brigitte Bardot, have been smokers, and portray the politicians who want to make them give up as hypocrites.

The law was drafted under former president Jacques Chirac, who, according to a recent unauthorized biography, slept with a packet of Marlboros on his bedside table. The taste for nicotine remains particularly strong among the young. To French adolescents, particularly those raised amid the bourgeoisie, starting to smoke is as much a rite of passage as declaring yourself to be a Trotskyist or buying a moped.

It is calculated that more than half of 15- to 25-year-olds smoke, the highest proportion in the European Union. Efforts to dissuade them have persistently backfired. An expensive anti-smoking campaign featuring the football hero Zinedine Zidane collapsed ignominiously a few years ago when "Zizou" was photographed behind his team's dug-out, drawing on a Gauloise.

"Basically, the government has dumped the whole problem on us," says René la Pape, the Paris-based president of the 19,000-strong café-owners' union. The downslide in popularity of the French café (at least two go out of business every day) is so tragic a problem to the French people that politicians are considering subsidies to keep them alive.

"They want to look as though they are being socially responsible, but they don't understand how a cafe works, or why customers come here. Smoking is a part of French life. We have already lost thousands of traditional cafes. Do we want to kill off the rest?"

This sort of appeal has a strong public resonance. Although polls originally showed a large majority for the ban, support appears to be weakening. Writers and intellectuals, mindful of what Jean-Claude Blondel, manager of the venerable Left Bank philosophers' hang-out Cafe de Flore, calls "the shared history of smoking and ideas", are also voicing concern.

"A world is collapsing," mourned the novelist Philippe Delerm in Le Monde. "Once it was as though intellectual life, invective and seduction could only exist in a cloud of smoke. Those were the days. Smoking may kill, but life kills, too, in just as insidious a way."

"Look at the old photographs," adds Blondel. "Sartre, de Beauvoir, Colette, Camus, they all smoked." So they did, although at a recent exhibition dedicated to Sartre, the philosopher's trademark cigarette was airbrushed out as a condition of state funding.

The opposition to the smoking ban in France grows, both in terms of size and diversity of the methods. Multiple websites help smokers find French cafes where they can light up, for example. But one man has taken his protest to a higher level.

In January of 2010, Christophe Cedat, owner of the Cafe 203 in Lyon, set out to smoke two packs of cigarettes a day — just to see what it would to do to his body. Cedat, who is in his 40s, had not smoked in decades. He is documenting his experience with graphics showing the number of cigarettes he has smoked since January, and updates on his physical and mental health. Ironically, prior to the smoking ban Cedat had opened one of France’s first non-smoking cafes. Fast-forward to today and he has a mini-van filled with thousands of cigarette butts, which he displays like a work of art. But Cedat said he is not out for publicity.

“I do it to feel what it’s like to be a smoker,” he said. “I wanted to experiment the daily life of a smoker. It is a social activity, smokers give cigarettes to each others, you know, they lend their lighters.”Of course to keep up his experiment, Cedat needs to smoke even when he doesn’t feel like it. But he said that there are three cigarettes that he always enjoys: “the first one in the morning, then after coffee and after dinner. These give rhythm to your day, they are like little rewards.”

But isn’t he worried about his health? “I am not a crazy adventurer,” Cedat said. “I have two kids, and my business is thriving.” A cardiologist and a psychologist have been monitoring him, he added. And he actually reduced his daily cigarette intake by half a pack after his doctor told him that he might die from a cardiac spasm if he kept smoking two packs a day.

Cedat intends to defend smokers’ rights, even though he was not one of them just four months ago.“The issue with tobacco,” he said, “is that there are about 15 million smokers in France, you can’t treat them so harshly. I don’t understand why this law is so strict, when in other areas things are much more flexible.”His cafe is now among France’s few smoking bars. He got around the ban by building a large, covered terrace. “I am an explorer,” Cedat said. “My cafe, for instance, is a fantastic social lab.”

Sources and Additional Information:

http://internationalbusiness.wikia.com/wiki/French_Culture_-_Attitude_Towards_Smoking

http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Europe/France/Ile_de_France/Paris-99080/Local_Customs-Paris-Smoking-BR-1.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1573511/France-fears-arrival-of-cigarette-smoking-ban.html

http://www.tobacco-news.net/supersize-me-cigarette-round/

Tobacco Smoking Culture in Italy

With this post, I start a new chapter in this blog, offering reviews on culture of smoking in different countries. While it is unhealthy habit no matter where, and not matter for whom, just do not undermine the cultural background, reasons why people became smokers in the first place, and reasons, why they are reluctant to give it away in spite of widely available information and deathly outcomes.

Culture of Smoking in Italy versus the States

Dissimilarities between The United States and Italy are not hard to find; everything from people, to style, to landscape is unlike the norm in America. Whether or not these differences are positive, negative, or just that, differences, is up for constant debate, but one thing can be agreed upon; the smoking cultures vary to great extents. The American who smokes is seen as far more annoying, rude, and trashy than any Italian smoking outside their shop. It is known that when coming to Europe the prevalence of smokers will increase, but it was not expected to be more accepting of this increase.

During the earlier 1990s, in The United States, having a large cloud of second-hand smoke blown in your face at the local family restaurant was very common. Still today, even after heavy bans on public smoking, it is possible to find yourself trapped behind a loud, nasal-voiced women sucking down her cigarette as fast as possible at a beach or other outdoor public venue.

Only since October of 2005 have there been restaurant restrictions on smoking in Italy. Prior to these restrictions it was very common to see Italians enjoying a cigarette over an espresso while reading the soccer periodicals. Italians, and Europeans in general, have been known for decades to enjoy the act of smoking, smoking before the Americas were even discovered. Though this does not permit the using of cigarettes or make it less harmful for any individual, it may explain the differences between Italian smokers and American smokers. Perhaps, Italians are like the mature fifty-five year-old man that likes to enjoy a scotch daily after supper and Americans are the freshly turned twenty-one year-old adolescent that has been counting down the days to spiral into binge drinking. The time each culture has had to cultivate a culture around smoking plays a huge roll in how it is executed.

It is a fact that there is a higher percentage of Italians than Americans that are over the age of fifteen who consume cigarettes daily. These figures cannot be disputed, but the way in which cigarettes are used is very debatable. From personal experience, America has an extremist culture, doing everything big, loud and to full capacity; cigarettes are no exception. Cigarettes are often used in the states to extreme levels, as if it is a competition to see who can smoke the most tobacco sticks.  Italy, however, is a much more laidback culture, appreciating every minute of everyday. The same theory goes for having a cigarette, enjoy every separate inhale in a laidback manner.

The smell between Italian and American cigarettes is very distinct and can tell a lot about the differences in the culture of smoking. The quality of Italian made cigarettes and Italian tobacco allows for a much superior smell for the user and those surrounding. The increase quality also offers less harmful additives and toxins than those found in American cigarettes, enriching the secondhand user’s experience. The elevated properties of Italian smoking goods raise the reputation and stigma surrounding those who partake in smoking because when the smells are enjoyable the secondhand use goes unnoticed.

Strong campaigns in The States have vilified the cigarette industry and its customers. Smokers are often seen as repellent and dirty individuals as characterized by the strong ad campaigns and efforts of non-tobacco organizations. This criticism has cast a huge negative connotation on smoking as a whole, forcing American citizen to instantly think poorly about those who participate in such actions. This first impression leaves a bad taste in our mouths making it hard to see any good when it comes to smoking. This is opposite to the Italian culture. Smoking is widely accepted by most Italians with little or no negative connotation applied to it.

Whether the smoking culture differences stem from deep-routed Italian smoking traditions, American abuse, or reason that cannot be attributed to one encompassing fact, differences are predominant. During your time in Italian notice these differences, and enjoy one of the many participated traditions that fill Italy.

Author: Richard J. Widden

Source: http://www.theflorencenewspaper.com/lifestyle-a-entertainment/living-in-the-city/145-smoking-in-italy-vs-united-states-.html

Smoking in Rome

If you like smoking, Rome’s the place to do it. Or put another way, if you don't smoke, you will certainly be among the minority in Italy. Bring a gasmask.

While there are many bars and restaurants who operate a smoking ban, this is largely on account of their proprietors not wishing to lose the custom of increasing numbers of non-smoking Western tourists. However, these are the exception rather than the rule, so it’s possible in most places to enjoy a smoke with your coffee, thus heightening one’s enjoyment of the perfect Roman moment.

Say what you will, but the relaxed attitude of Italians towards smoking - the freedom to smoke in Rome - creates a wonderful nostalgic atmosphere of a city that has not bowed down to the soulless politically correct health-nuts that have taken so much of people's fun out of streetlife in most other world cities. Rome is not the home of the air-conditioned mall - It's a bustling colorful, sensual open-air city with no limits, with much of its heart still planted firmly in the days of simpler pleasures of the 1930's, 40's, 50s and 60's, when every pick-up line, short con or sales pitch began with the offer of a cigarette, not a cucumber juice.

It's a question of style and keeping up standards of dress - And it's a jazz thing...

Health? Atmosphere? Clean air? Civilised behaviour? When Italians go into a cafe, they'd sooner see a crowd of smartly-dressed men and women in suits and well-cut dresses smoking cigarettes and sipping coffees and shots than a bunch of sweat-dripping and smelling 'athletes' in scruffy running shoes, T-shirts, shorts or cut-offs, swilling fruit juice or water from those ugly plastic bottles as if they'd just crossed the desert and hadn't seen water for nine days. If you want to dress like that, go to the running track, but don't hang around the bars of Rome with that attitude, because you will stick out like a sore thumb with the word 'TOURIST' etched on your forehead. Rome's a smart town, so get with the program.

A few years ago it was difficult for visiting smokers to find Western brands of cigarettes in Italy, but this is no longer the case and popular Western brands like Marlboro, Dunhill or Players are freely available in most ‘Tabacchi’.

A 'tabacchi', as it’s name suggests, is a sort of tobacconist which sells cigarettes (obviously), other smoking materials (such as nice cigarette cases and lighters and those rolling machines for ciggy-papers), sweets, chewing gum, postage stamps, numerous brands of little mints and breath-fresheners, small items of stationary like pens and sometimes filofaxes, plus men’s toiletries and grooming aids. It’s a sort of newsagents without the newspapers, or a chemist which sells cigarettes instead of medicine. (as for newspapers, they’re mostly sold from news-stands in the street, but you can’t browse endlessly through the magazines a la WH Smith as most of the mags are behind the counter.

If you want to merge into the local smoking culture, then smoke the popular Italian brands such as Diana (mild), or MS (strong).

Respect the smoking conventions though - Even in a bar or restaurant where smoking is allowed, if it’s lunchtime, or large numbers of people nearby are eating, keep your distance from them and the food counter, or wait until you're outside again.

Be very careful how you dispose of the cigarette butt - In hot weather these may start a fire amidst waste litter on the street, or if thrown from a car in a rural area, hot, dry grass and shrub foliage can ignite, causing forest fires. Thus, there are heavy spot fines issued by police and carabinere for being seen throwing the cigarette butts carelessly.

However, a delightful feature of Rome’s smoking culture is the inclusion of ashtrays in the side-panels of almost all rubbish bins in the city, so there is really no excuse to just toss the butts away.

Finally, though many do, it’s still a bit non-U to smoke in the street, although this can be excused at stationary moments during the passeggiata.

In spite of the unhealthiness of smoking and the occasional discomfort it can cause to passive imbibers with smoke allergies, its prevalence in Rome and Italy in general adds a cool, carefree and stylish quality which has long gone from many other world cities today.

Source: http://www.romebuddy.com/warnsabout/smoking.html

Chewing Tobacco: History, Specifics, and Health Effects

Chewing Tobacco History

Chewing tobacco is one of the oldest forms of tobacco usage in America. Native Americans began the method of taking tobacco leaves and either chewing them or holding it between the teeth and the cheek. While this is the most primitive way to use tobacco, when early colonists came to America, they quickly adopted the method and began to refine the manufacturing processes. The colonist also knew how valuable tobacco was and for a short time, was used as a currency in the colonies. The early Americans began to process the tobacco by drying it out in large drying barns and adding a smoky element by lighting smoldering fires made from Oak or Hickory for flavoring.

Once the tobacco leaves were properly dried and smoked, they added a bit of water and a sweetener to enhance the flavors then either left it whole or, cut the leaves into thin strips and chewed. This type of chewing tobacco is known as “Loose Leaf chew” or “Chaw” depending on where you are in the south. In the early 1800’s, local farmers would make chewing tobacco for their own use or, traded it to their neighbors. Towards the end of the 19th century, many of these small manufacturers grew into large companies like Helm and R.J. Reynolds which made the southern states a mecca for Chewing Tobacco. In fact, R.J. Reynolds, in the early 1900’s, had 84 different chewing tobacco brands in its portfolio.

Chewing tobacco became so popular in the 1800’s and 1900’s that it was even more popular than cigars and smoking tobacco until the 1930’s. During that time, spittoons were as commonplace then as ashtrays are now! In fact, there were even spittoons in federal buildings including the floors of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. There are still spittoons in the Senate although they are not used. As the popularity of smoking and cigarettes increased, the spittoon became an antique and a relic of the saloons of the Old West.

For much of the 20^th century, chewing tobacco began to be associated with being independent, mature, ‘macho man’, etc. it became culturally associated with baseball and other sports. Youngsters who looked at the sportsmen as their role models started imitating them and smokeless tobacco became very popular among the younger generation.

The germ theory was proved at the end of the 19th century bringing public outcry against unsanitary practices of spitting in which disease could be spread.  Spitting tobacco became socially unacceptable and unlawful, especially in public places.

In the 1970’s spit tobacco began to slowly shift from a product primarily used by older men to one used predominantly by young men and boys.  From 1970 to 1991, the regular use of moist snuff by 18-24 year old males increased almost ten-fold from less than one percent to 6.2%.  Conversely, use among males 65 and older decreased by almost half, from 4 to 2.2 percent.

Why Do People Use Chewing Tobacco?

The reason is plain and simple and it is Nicotine. Well, plain but not so simple really. Back in old days, people really didn’t understand Nicotine like we do today. What they knew about tobacco was what they either learned from the Native Americans or, learned by trying it. What they knew was that by chewing the leaves from the tobacco plant, a calming feeling came over the user that was pleasant. The Nicotine rush you get with chewing tobacco is much different than the one you get from cigarettes. As you all know, cigarettes give a quick burst of Nicotine that lasts as long as the cigarette does which is about 10 minutes. Chewing tobacco, on the other hand, has a gradual kick that begins about 5 minutes after you begin chewing the leaves and lasts for as long as the flavor lasts which can be up to an hour depending on the brand. As you can see, chewing tobacco had its advantages over smoking tobacco. It was quicker and lasted longer.

Why Chewing Tobacco is Better than Cigarettes Smoking?

If you are a tobacco addict, and you do not want, or simply cannot abandon the bad habit altogether, switching from cigarettes smoking to tobacco chewing may benefit smokers in three main ways. First, smokeless tobacco use is considered by professionals as being 98 percent safer than cigarette smoking. Thus, it can save the lives of smokers and of those persons who breathe second-hand smoke. Second, smokeless tobacco effectively provides the nicotine kick smokers crave. That is why one third of smokeless users in the U.S. today are former smokers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Third — and this may be surprising to most readers — modern smokeless tobacco products can be used invisibly, much like a breath mint, in any social situation. This is important because old-fashioned "chewing" or "spitting" tobacco is outdated and irrelevant to this discussion. These facts are the foundation of a simple and practical harm reduction strategy for inveterate smokers: switch to smokeless tobacco.

Contrary to a popular misperception, all forms of tobacco are not equally risky. Smokeless tobacco causes neither lung cancer nor other diseases of the lung, and users have no excess risk for heart attacks. However, the biggest danger of smokeless tobacco use - oral cancer – still exists. In 1981, writing in The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Deborah Winn and colleagues established that smokeless tobacco users are four times more likely to develop oral cancer than are nonusers of tobacco. However, this relative risk is only about one half the relative risk of oral cancer from smoking.

Health Risks

It is possible, that the chewing tobacco is safer than smoking it, but no way that can be considered as safe alternative of tobacco consumption overall. Chewing tobacco leads to possible numerous side effects, which can be internal or external. The main harmful effects of tobacco are:

1. Erodes Tooth: The ingredients of tobacco consist of gravels, sand, and other harmful chemicals that erode the enamel of tooth. Continuous chewing leads to early loss of tooth.
2. Early Decay of Tooth: Chewing leaves small particles in tooth that forms bacteria and plaque, it harms enamel and gums, which leads to decay of tooth.

3. Gum slump: Chewing leads to decomposing of gums, the gums get infected and the grip on tooth loosens which exposes the sensitive area of tooth.
4. Bad Breadth: There is nothing as bad as bad breadth of a person; they are major turn off for people around them. The long-term habit of chewing and spitting in many occasions may look unacceptable and indecent.
5. Affects Eating Habit: Eating habit of people who chews tobacco tends to be unhealthy, continuous chewing affects the taste bud and the sensitivity of them decreases. This leads to an increase in intake of more salt, sugar and spices in food as he feels a bland taste in his mouth.
6. Damage to tongue, jaw and lips: Chewing leads to the early decay of tooth, bad breadth, damaged gums and falling of tooth. The addiction of tobacco affects the area around the mouth. The tongue and jaws face the following problems:

·         Discoloring of lips and lip cancer

·         Sore Throat

·         Difficulty in movement of jaws and tongue

·         Rashes or irritation on tongue

·         Burning sensation on lips and tongue

7. Oral Cancer: Continuous chewing process leaves infectious juices on tooth and lips. These develop in white patches that can be considered as an early symptom of oral cancer. People who indulge in tobacco chewing have higher risk of oral cancer to people who take alcohol. The most infected area in oral cancer is the tongue and the area below the tongue. The cancer slowly spreads to cheeks and throat. Though it can attack any part lips, tongue, upper and lower mouth, the cheeks, or gums and esophagus. Smokeless tobacco contains at least three known carcinogenic agents: N-nitrosamines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and polonium 210. Users who swallow chewing tobacco especially increase their risk of esophageal damage and stomach ulcers.

Sources and Additional Information:

http://www.chewingtobacco.biz/chewing-tobacco-history.html

http://www.tobaccofreeutah.org/hissmkls.pdf

http://www.acsh.org/healthissues/newsid.744/healthissue_detail.asp

http://www.notosmoke.com/herbal-smoking-articles/effects-of-tobacco.htm

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=51026