Is Swedish snus a preventive substitute for cigarettes?

This is a review paper on the usage of smokeless tobacco, snus. A narrative view of published papers and other date sources (for example, internet-base information) on snus use, use of other tobacco products, and changes in health status in Sweden and Norway. The snus consumption have increased substantially during the recent decades and today more than every fifth male adult uses snus daily in Norway and Sweden. Some of the publications made from snus are written in Scandinavia, and therefore some of the papers are directly translated from Scandinavian into English. It must be emphasized that this is not a study on snus, rather a review paper. This text will shortly be about the dramatic increase in snus usage among adults in Scandinavia, mainly Sweden and Norway the last decade and their short and longterm effects. In the recent times the tobacco industry has been active in developing and marketing new products that might be perceived as less harmful to health than typical cigarettes. At the same time, there has been an increasingly vigorous debate within the public health community over the most appropriate response to the new products being developed by the industry. In this debate, public health advocates have been mindful of the historical precedents set by previous tobacco industry attempts to..