EXPOSED: Why there IS a “Unique” American Snus Taste

One of the biggest mysteries for not only myself as a Swedish Snus user, but as someone skilled in marketing, new product launches, and creating new marketing verticles, regarding the “new, overly sweet” taste of the new American Manufactured snus’s is simply WHY?

The development, introduction and marketing of an extremely discreet, spit-less alternative to cigarettes makes perfect sense.  The outright banning of cigarettes in America is now only a question of  ‘when’, not if.  US Tobacco sensibly wants to stay in business and the US State and Federal Government’s budgets would collapse without a replacement for the obscene user tax’s placed on 46+ million American Cigarette Smokers.

Swedish snus is the perfect alternative.  China is famous for reverse engineering: the US Tobacco Companies could have simply re-created Swedish Snus; then of course cheapening the ingredients to continue their obscene profit margins.

When Asian knock-offs of the iPhone or other consumer electronics developed in the United States appear, they intentionally look and function as much like the original American product as possible.  There is a reason for that:

They save money by cutting out all the Research and Development money (spent by the US inventors) and by using cheaper components.  But when it comes to looks and functionality, they stay as close to the original product as possible:  that’s what make people buy them.

The same is true of designer clothing, purses, shoes, and a whole host of products.

You would expect US Tobacco to essentially follow the same very profitable model, with their horde of on-staff attorneys making sure the final product was JUST different enough to avoid patent suits.

Instead, Big American Tobacco:  R.J. Reynolds in particular, spent a huge amount of money developing a completely different tasting product, test marketing it, and spending even more money through marketing to ASSOCIATE American Snus with the Reduced Harm benefits Swedish Snus instead of just making American snus as Reduced Harm a tobacco product as Swedish Snus.

Why go through all the time, effort and money?  Probably 99% of Americans (Swedish descendants excluded) thought R.J Reynolds Tobacco and Philip Morris USA invented snus back in 2006 anyway (I did)…..they never even heard of snus until Taboka, Marlboro Snus and Camel Snus were introduced.

Why all the wasted effort and money?  Why take a taste model that has been successful for over two centuries, completely change it, and then try to convince American consumers that both American and Swedish snus were the same…..snus?

Americans who did know of and use Swedish Snus prior to 2006 never complained about the taste. Generally speaking, Europeans like American food; Americans like European food.  The taste of Swedish Snus has a more than 200 year track record of success.  Simply re-engineering American Snus to taste like Swedish Snus would be easy enough, cheap enough, and the logical course to take.

So why was “American Flavor” invented?  What cabal  made that decision and WHY would all the other American snus-making cigarette companies follow like lemmings? Why would American Tobacco risk changing the flavor of a product with an over 200 year track record of success?

Philip Morris makes a snus in Sweden called 1847 which they only market overseas.  It’s one of my favorites.  They KNOW how to make REAL SWEDISH SNUS: so WHY the abomination they call Marlboro Snus?

The answer, ironically,  turns out to be historical and with a long track record of success.  Nicotine manipulation is part of it, but not the real reason for the sickly-sweet, watered-down flavor that has come to be known as the “American flavor” of US manufactured snus.

Quoting from an article by Jeffrey Rose, CMH ” American “cigarettes themselves are actually between 8% and 18% sugar, so smokers who puff a cigarette frequently during the day are actually giving themselves blood sugar-raising hits throughout the day.  All this contributes to smokers experiencing a slight sugar high from increased blood glucose.  As a result of this, many smokers also experience a lessening of appetite.

This may explain why people gain weight after stopping smoking.  They are trying to maintain their prior elevated glucose level, which was found to be pleasurable.  Any craving that a new nonsmoker might experience is most noticeable in the morning and mid-afternoon, when low blood sugar is no longer blocked by smoking.”

Thus each cigarette gives the smoker a “sugar high” as well a dose of nicotine, further enhancing the pleasurable effects of cigarettes with sugar as well as nicotine.    This, combined with the eventual nicotine addiction, make it so incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for many people to quit nicotine tobacco products.

That’s why there are still over 46 million American cigarette smokers in a country where the majority of people hate cigarettes and now even openly hate cigarette smokers; this despite the increasing boldness of the anti-cigarette majority in restricting the smokers right of where, when, and even if they can smoke.

Employers can refuse to hire a person who fails a nicotine urine test even if that person never smokes at work.  There are now apartment and townhouse complexes where you are forbidden to even smoke in your own home or anywhere in the community.

Yet cigarettes are still as legal as alcohol, although unlike alcohol, not nearly as obscenely taxed.  Tyranny of the Majority.

The Majority like and use alcohol of some sort.  The failure of Prohibition proved you don’t go against the Majority and win.  But addicted cigarette smokers are a minority in America and thus fair game.  All 46MM+ of them…..and all the money they represent to both Big Tobacco and Government, Big and Small in the USA.

So when Big Tobacco decided to enter the “snus” market, of course they would use every proven method to transition cigarette addicts to American snus addicts.  For over 150 years, that means nicotine AND sugar.  And that explains the “revolutionary new American snus taste”.

It also explains to ME, a diabetic, why when I did a recent test of only American snus’s trying to understand this taste issue, that my blood glucose levels went up and I needed more insulin.  Sugar absorbed orally has a much stronger and longer-lasting effect on blood glucose than sugar inhaled.

So diabetics beware! We have NO idea how much sugar each American snus manufacturer uses.   Philip Morris also states (not on the Marlboro Snus website but the Philip Morris Website) something to the effect that people with food allergies SHOULD be OK using Marlboro Snus, but they make no promises.  They advise those people concerned to contact Philip Morris for more information.

And while R.J. Reynolds “says” Camel SNUS has 8mg of nicotine, (meaning it may as of this moment, but not in the past or not in the future) they do not put it on-record by publishing it on their website.

Phillip Morris now actually does:  Marlboro Snus, depending on flavor, only has between 3.5mg and 3.9mg of nicotine per pouch. Lorillard STILL refuses to confirm or deny my confidential information that after the Free Triumph Snus Promotion ended and they began charging for Triumph Snus, they had Swedish Match reduce the nicotine level to between 4-5mg per pouch.

It all gets back to Mr. UNZ’s first role of investigating:  Follow the Money. Both the US Government and Big Tobacco have a vested interest in keeping those 46 million+ smokers addicted and paying cash to them to do so.  There will never be any American equivalent to Swedish Snus in terms of a Reduced Harm Tobacco product.  Because that is not the priority of either the US/State Governments or Big Tobacco.

The bills pending in Congress now are designed to set the stage for banning cigarettes, replacing them with an equally profitable substitute that IS discreet and won’t offend The Majority, and even taking it an extreme step further:   To facilitate and mandate the taxing of ALL products purchased over the Internet.

Tobacco (except cigars of course) is just a means to an ultimate end.  Bills in Congress today like the PACT Act will, by banning overseas Internet purchases and delivery of tobacco (except cigars) to American consumers until “certain conditions are met”, is just the testing ground.  Once perfected, a switch will be flicked and ALL Internet purchases will be subject to State Sales Tax.

But even for The Majority, by then it will be too late to stop it by then.  And to think, the American Revolutionary War began over the British Tea Tax.  Taxation without Representation….

Follow the money:  any other argument you hear is just someone “blowing smoke”……..

Sincerely,

Larry Waters writing as…….

Mr. UNZ
The Snus Guru

December 6th, 2008;

Finally at SnusCENTRAL.org