• For several months, a substance derived from tobacco has appeared on the market, despite its ban in Europe: snus, a sucking tobacco.

  • Snus is very popular with young people.

    In question, its democratization and its sale via social networks such as TikTok and Snapchat.

  • 20 Minutes

    takes stock of this drug, which was unknown to the general public a few weeks ago and which, if not smoked, is very addictive and carcinogenic due to its high nicotine level.

In recent months, Snus has been a hit with young adults, even teenagers.

Taking the form of a small bag the size of chewing gum filled with moist tobacco powder, this sucking substance offers its consumer a powerful shot of nicotine, a very addictive molecule usually present in cigarettes.

On social networks, in particular the TikTok and Snapchat platforms mega popular with young and even very young people, more and more consumers and sellers are even advertising this tobacco that cannot be smoked.

20 Minutes

takes stock of the snus that is flooding the French market, while this nicotine-rich product is banned from sale there.

What is snus?

At first glance, snus looks like a packet of chewing gum.

It is supplied in very colorful boxes, such as tea boxes.

These pouches contain moist tobacco powder, water, salt, sodium carbonate and flavorings.

This product sucks: the sachet is to be placed between the gum and the upper lip, where it will release nicotine.

"The goal is to produce a tobacco juice", explains addictologist and preventologist Stéphanie Ladel contacted by

20 Minutes

.

Designed and marketed in Sweden, snuff tobacco is very popular in Nordic countries and Asia.

In Sweden, according to Brut, more than a million people regularly consume this alternative to cigarettes.


Addictive, harmful, more and more popular with young people… It is banned everywhere in Europe, except in Sweden where it is consumed by more than 1 million people.

What is snus?

pic.twitter.com/Wztqb1Pfch

— Brut FR (@brutofficiel) December 26, 2022

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However, the sale of snus has been illegal in the European Union since 1992, with the exception of Luxembourg and Sweden.

Stockholm has the right to sell it on its territory, but not to export it.

However, in two or three clicks, it is very easy to find a reseller in France online.

Ease of access which worries specialists in addictology (the Alliance against tobacco), in particular because of the toxicity of the product.

Why is it dangerous to consume Snus?

Like all tobacco products, snus contains nicotine.

Placing a sachet of snus directly on the thin skin of the gums would increase the effect of nicotine tenfold, and release endorphins more intensely than with a cigarette.

"Certainly, we do not burn tobacco, but the rate of nicotine absorbed is very high: a dose consumed for twenty to thirty minutes is equivalent to three cigarettes," says Stéphanie Ladel.

A box of 20 sachets represents the amount of nicotine of 60 cigarettes.

“In these sachets, we have different dosages and therefore we can go from three milligrams to doses of twenty milligrams of nicotine per sachet.

By way of comparison, when you smoke a cigarette, you have between one and two milligrams of nicotine per cigarette smoked,” explains Adrien Meunier,

Cancer of the mouth, throat, pancreas and overall digestive system, oral lesions, receding gums, etc., consumers are exposed to the same diseases as smokers, contrary to what they say about social networks.

"Research has confirmed the existence of a link between the consumption of snus and the occurrence of a stroke or infarction", can also be read on the Génération Sans Tabac website

.

“Nicotine irritates the throat and the bronchial tubes and, by the dose present in the sachets, quickly leads to addiction”, advances the Alliance against tobacco.

And to add: “Snus can cause cancers of the pancreas due to the passage of tobacco in the digestive system and leads to lesions of the mucous membranes in the mouth and an irreversible retraction of the gums.

»


❓ [SNUS] ❓


You may have heard of it before.

What is that ?

We take stock.

👇#snus #tobacco pic.twitter.com/NVCfZownFc

– ACT - Alliance Against Tobacco (@ACT_SansTabac) April 8, 2021

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While in 2022, a quarter (25.1%) of 17-year-olds smoke daily and more than six out of ten adolescents have already smoked, this increase in the use of snuff tobacco, and the addiction to nicotine which ensues, also appears "as a gateway to smoking", according to the experts.

And in videos shared on social networks, young consumers evoke headaches, migraines, pallor, nausea, vomiting or even palpitations.

"These are symptoms of an overdose, of nicotine poisoning," says our addictologist.

According to

Le Parisien

,

just in the academy of Créteil (Val-de-Marne), “four situations which led to calling the emergency room” were noted between the end of September and mid-October.

Why has snus become so popular with young people?

According to Stéphanie Ladel, two mechanisms boost the consumption of snus.

Let us look first on the side of sociology.

“When we are young, naturally, we want to do things differently than the older ones.

However, the cigarette can be associated with something corny.

That's why young people are experimenting with sucking tobacco, like for the consumption of nitrous oxide [a laughing gas], alcohol in the eyes or even the puff [a disposable electronic cigarette], "explains the expert.

Then let’s look on the side of… social networks.

There, consumers proudly post their “how to put a snus” tutorials.

Just type #snus on TikTok to see thousands of videos flooding in massively promoting sucking tobacco.

Videos viewed a total of 1.1 billion times, displayed on its Tiktok interface.


And on Snapchat, resellers are not lacking in imagination to attract customers.

“The problem is that they use popular marketing codes,” argues Stéphanie Ladel.

We thus find packaging developed with fresh tastes: fresh mint, strawberry, vanilla, chocolate or even melon.

And if the authorities are worried about the growing number of young people indulging in the experience, they are not the only ones to try snus.

Athletes, for whom tobacco does not rhyme with high-level competition and who would see in snus a means of boosting their concentration, have been photographed in the act of “snusssage”.

Among them, the ultra-followed football superstars on social networks, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Karim Benzema or Marcus Thuram.

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