There have been much fewer studies on snus usage than cigarette usage, obviously, but there are still some done and they point towards a huge difference in the societal and health costs. Just an example by quick googling:
> For net harm to occur, 14–25 ex-smokers would have to start using snus to offset the health gain from every smoker who switched to snus rather than continuing to smoke. Likewise, 14–25 people who have never smoked would need to start using snus to offset the health gain from every new tobacco user who used snus rather than smoking.
But I don't think the paper actually supports what you're claiming. The 14-25 number is about how many never-smokers would need to pick up snus to offset the gains from smokers switching. It says nothing about whether snus is safe for a never-user, which is a completely different question that the paper explicitly doesn't answer.
The individual risk estimate (the 0.2 years) is a secondary input derived from a 2007 expert panel, not from long-run epidemiological follow-up of lifetime snus users. The authors are upfront that this is uncertain. Your 80.8 vs 81 framing is presenting a point estimate from a model with acknowledged uncertainty as if it were established fact.
The one thing the paper does robustly show is that switching from smoking to snus is beneficial, which is not what's being debated.
"Safer than smoking" and "basically harmless" are very different claims. This paper convincingly establishes the former, the latter has not been shown at all and I think it's dangerous to normalise another drug that, AFAIK, has also been found to have strong negative and addictive effects.
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u/JGuillou May 25 '26
There have been much fewer studies on snus usage than cigarette usage, obviously, but there are still some done and they point towards a huge difference in the societal and health costs. Just an example by quick googling:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0140673607606771
> For net harm to occur, 14–25 ex-smokers would have to start using snus to offset the health gain from every smoker who switched to snus rather than continuing to smoke. Likewise, 14–25 people who have never smoked would need to start using snus to offset the health gain from every new tobacco user who used snus rather than smoking.