Dual Usership: A Poll.

[chadizzy1]

In a new study (http://www.prlog.org/10852320-cigare...ves-study.html) from the TobaccoControl folks, they seem to stress the "dual user" term.

"Even more serious, other smokers who might otherwise be pressured to quit by bans on smoking in the workplace may be able to remain smokers by using nicotine administration products while at work - a use for which they are prominently advertised. In such situations they not only fail to get the health benefit of quitting entirely, but also wind up as "dual users" with the combined risks of both smoking tobacco and of the nicotine substitute product. Thus their overall health risk might simply be additive (the sum of the risks of both products) or, as some have suggested, synergistic (higher than the sum of the risks of both products)."

We also observed this in the recent 60 Minutes story with the nicotine junkie they found.

I'm curious, for many of you - how long were you a "dual user", and how long did it take for snus to take over?

NOTE: By Dual User I mean cigarette and smokeless user. I don't consider occasional pipe usage or nasal snuff to be dual usership as I view them as a "hobby" or not so much as a habit.

[StuKlu]

I continued to smoke about 3 to 5 cigarettes a day for the first couple of months. This was from a pack to pack and a half a day. Now I may have a cigarette once a month or so, just for the hell of it

[sgreger1]

I never smoked so I just choose "1 week or less". I did dip, but quite LITERALLY the day I got my first snus order. Too easy.

[tom502]

Does this ONLY refer to cigs? I use nasal snuff, and for a while there I was using dip and chew. I might on rare occasion smoke a cig. Currently I've just been using snus and snuff, but if I want to use aomething else sometime, I might. While someday I may quit it all, I'm currently just a tobacco user presently.
1. snus, 2 snuff, 3 dip, 4 chew, 5, cig, 6, pipe....

I guess I'm an occasional quad-user.

[ratcheer]

None of the above.

I haven't smoked in many years and have only used snus for the past three months.

Tim

[Langdell]

I'll refrain from answering the poll because I am and intend to continue to be a dual user, but with pipe smoking rather than cigarette smoking. (My pipe use is habitual rather than occasional--I still smoke 3-4 pipefuls on a typical day. Never been a habitual cigarette smoker, longtime habitual pipe smoker.)

A very annoying (and entirely predictable) tactic by the anti-tobacco folks is failure to distinguish between a "dual user" who has reduced harm to himself by using snus to greatly reduce the amount of the more harmful smoking and people like the guy in the 60 Minutes spot, who admitted he literally "dual used" by smoking and snusing at the same time. Their "logic" seems to be that, as long as you still smoke any amount, you are not reducing harm by adding snusing. By that logic, if you're going to smoke one cig a day, you might as well smoke 2 packs. I firmly believe that if you are replacing a significant amount of smoking with snus, you're reducing harm even if you don't quit all together. (In my case, I have cut my pipe smoking to at least a third of what it used to be with snus. Pipe smoking is much less harmful than cig smoking, but I feel that replacing 2/3 of my exposure to smoke with smokeless, low-TNSA snus can only be helping matters.) I say kudos to those who use snus to quit smoking completely, but I also think there is great value in snus even if you remain a dual user, as long as the use of snus is significantly reducing the amount of smoking.

[tom502]

I don't recall the 60 Mins guy saying he smoked while he snussed, though he did say he brushed his teeth with a snus in, though I don't see how. But while it didn't say, I do wonder how much he smoked before he took up snus. He could have been a 3 pack a day smoker.

[Langdell]

I don't recall the 60 Mins guy saying he smoked while he snussed, though he did say he brushed his teeth with a snus in, though I don't see how. But while it didn't say, I do wonder how much he smoked before he took up snus. He could have been a 3 pack a day smoker.

It's been a while since I listened to it, but I'm pretty sure he did say that he, at least sometimes, kept snus in while he smoked. I could be wrong. Anyway, my main point is that the anti-tobacco zealots make ominous statements like "We don't know the effects of dual use" without distinguishing between a dual user who smokes a great deal less than he did before and a dual user who smokes about the same amount as before. They would lump someone who continues to smoke 2 packs a day and adds snus on top of that in the same category as a snuser who went from smoking 2 packs a day to 2 cigs a day. To answer their question, I will say that greatly reducing the amount of the more harmful activity and replacing it with the less harmful one obviously has a beneficial effect.

[PipenSnus]

I guess it depends on how you define "dual user", but my cigarette smoking, on average, is less than one per day now, and has been since I started snuffing a couple of weeks ago. Same with pipes. 95% or more of my tobacco use is snus and snuff.

[snusjus]

I tried my first portion of Swedish snus and never looked back. End of story.

[lxskllr]

I wouldn't consider myself a dual user. I smoke a couple cigarettes per week, but that's because I have tobacco on hand. Otherwise I'd buy the occasional tobacco(once every few months or so), and smoke a couple cigarettes per week again until it was gone. It was about 8 months before I quit smoking as a regular thing, but I didn't intend to quit smoking when I started snus. It just kind of happened.

[N0mad]

Never, I don't smoke. Does snuff count?

[Simplysnus]

Dual user is defined in the first post people!

[pactactrefugee]

None of the above!
I quit smoking a few months before starting snus. And snus were better than nicotine gum

[Bigblue1]

Yeah I quit with snuff primarily with the odd dip thrown in, then made my way to snus. Istill voted less than a week because if i could quit with snuff in a matter of days I could have surely done it with snus faster. Also I really wanted to stop smoking had already weaned myself down to 10 a day when snuff came into the picture. I'm quite sure if there were any drawbacks to my snus and snuff usage at this point I could quit with little to no problem right now..... but i don't want to yet, so ha tobacco nazis stick that in your cornhole!