I quit using snus - Smoking Cessation Message Board

mathgrrl · 06-17-2009, 04:07 PM

I smoked for about 18 years and was up to a pack and a half a day. Last summer I tried to quit cold turkey and was successful for about 4 months, but then when school started back up the stress drove me back to smoking. A few months ago I quit again right in the middle of midterms during one of my most difficult semesters. I did it using Swedish Snus. I had tried the gum before, but it was really expensive and not very strong. The Snus worked because it was stronger. It is also a lot cheaper than both smoking and nicotine gum (about $4/pack including shipping), so I didn't try to skimp on it at any point.

Snus is a type of moist tobacco that you place under your upper lip. It isn't the same thing as chewing tobacco. Snus has fewer carcinogens that chewing tobacco because of the way it is processed. I don't want to go into too much detail on that, but there is a lot of info on the net.

I started out by just using the Snus during the day when I was at school/work, and still smoking in the morning and evening. Then when I ran out of cigarettes I switched to only snus. I use white mini portions that deliver around 4mg of nicotine (approximately half that of a cigarette). They are very inconspicuous and don't stain the teeth. I'm a woman, obviously, so the inconspicuous part is important to me. I'm currently in the process of stepping down the snus. I use 6 portions a day now, which is the same as 3 cigarettes. At the current rate, a tin of 20 portions lasts me a little over 3 days. So at $4/tin I am saving a lot of money compared to cigarettes.

I have found that cutting back use with the snus is a lot easier than cutting down on cigarettes ever was. I think it is because the snus can stay there as long as I want. So even when it is not delivering nicotine anymore, it is still there with a little bit of flavor and tingle.

If anyone is curious about trying snus there is a Camel snus that is available at most places that sell cigarettes. I don't really care for the Camel brand, though. It is very sweet and the portions are too big for me. A lot of the websites that sell snus directly from Sweden have samplers you can get so you try out different brands and flavors. As I mentioned before, I use a white mini portion.

If anyone has any questions I can try to answer them, but I'm not an expert.

mathgrrl · 07-07-2009, 12:25 AM

I thought I would update this. For the last couple of days I've only been using one portion of snus. I use mini-portions so one portion is around 4 mg of nicotine. So that is less than one cigarette worth of nicotine. I'm keeping an open mind and not trying to force myself to use less, I just don't even think about it until the end of the day. Then I wait until after dinner and pop a portion that I use until I go to bed (or have a snack).

Jooner18 · 07-08-2009, 03:33 AM

I've had the Snus, it's not too bad. It still makes me spit though, or at least I want to spit because that's seems to me to be the thing to do with dip, whether it's spitless or not. I'm glad the Snus is working for you, do your best to not trade one for another though of course.

mathgrrl · 12-21-2009, 10:28 PM

I thought I would update here. I haven't smoked since around March, and I stopped using snus over the summer. It worked really well. I didn't really make much effort to quit the snus, it sort of happened naturally.

I also have found staying quit is a lot easier. Maybe because I was able to fully break the habit before quitting the nicotine. I tried that before with the gum, but (a) it wasn't strong enough and (b) it was too expensive to use it the way I needed.