Smokeless tobacco

A recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine featured an article by Mark Prascondola et al. on a problem caused by tobacco taken orally, including in the form of snus, which is becoming increasingly popular in Poland. That problem is oral cancer. It is estimated that 360 million people in the world take tobacco orally (now mainly in Southeast Asian countries), and this is a major contributor to this cancer.

This form of tobacco consumption has the undoubted attraction of being non-aggressive to the environment (there is no smoke) and therefore easy for children to hide from their parents. For adults, too, it is convenient especially if they are in an environment where smoking is not allowed. Although the vascular effects of nicotine remain the same, but the risk of lung cancer is dropped.

Swapping lung cancer for oral cancer is not the best swap, as dying from this cancer involves much more suffering.

This is in an effort to raise awareness of Poland's biggest promoter of this form of tobacco consumption and his followers.