Spit Hits the Fan

Minnesotans have every reason to be proud of the numerous smoking bans on the way for bars and restaurants in municipalities throughout the state. After all, the clean-air initiatives associate us with such enlightened populations as the city of New York, the state of California, and even the entire country of Ireland, where the average pub once trapped air as thick as a good stout. The ashtray may go the way of the spittoon.

Or maybe not. Once the peculiar vice of baseball players, ranchers, and unruly teenage boys, chewing tobacco is now being positioned as the cigarette substitute of choice for urban hipsters. (Yes, for women, too.)

One highly sissified, minty-flavored “smokeless tobacco” has been advertising energetically in alternative weekly newspapers here and elsewhere. These ads have typically been two-page campaigns where a dilemma is identified on the first page. For example, Metrosexual Joe watches the Big Game at the local sports bar with his buddies. He is galled because he must either skip his nicotine fix or miss the action as he and his cigarettes decamp to the parking lot. But turn the page and—voila—a fat dip of Skoal is the answer to his prayers. Now he doesn’t have to miss a single play or dose. It’s like TiVo for your bloodstream.

Of course, Skoal also gives metrosexuals increased exposure to oral cancer and cardiovascular disease, along with decreased exposure to members of the opposite sex, who will surely look askance at that black wad in a petitioner’s teeth as he tries to score a phone number. It is no improvement in the breath category, either.

Joni Jensen, a project manager at the University of Minnesota’s Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center, said chew is a trend we should hope to avoid. “Smokeless tobacco in and of itself is less harmful than cigarettes, but it’s still not risk-free,” she said. “If it’s being advertised to be used not as a substitute to cigarettes but in addition to cigarettes, you’re actually increasing your risk. If people who might have quit because of the smoking bans are instead marketed into using a smokeless tobacco product, it’s going to have a negative public health effect.”

Jensen noted that smokeless tobacco is actually more addictive, because it gives the brain a steady buzz of nicotine rather than the quick spike and slow letdown provided by a cigarette, and the new “starter flavors” (apple, berry, vanilla) clearly indicate a product trying to appeal to a new market segment.

Then there’s the problem of secondhand saliva. Chewing tobacco waned in popularity in the early 1900s when it was banned in public due to fear of exacerbating a tuberculosis outbreak. And besides, it’s just gross. “Anybody who’s ever picked up a Coke can that somebody’s been spitting into and thought it was theirs would complain about the exposure to secondhand saliva,” Jensen said.

But Jon Schwartz, an enthusiastic spokesman for U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company, said the days of spit-filled bottles at bars will soon be a thing of the past, thanks to something called Revel. It is a new smokeless tobacco product that’s being test-marketed in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Dallas, Texas.

“Revel is a blend of premium, one hundred percent American tobacco that comes in mint and wintergreen,” said Schwartz, apparently reading directly from the company’s website. “It’s a small, discreet white packet, smaller than a piece of gum, and adult consumers can place it anywhere in their mouth where it’s comfortable and quickly enjoy tobacco satisfaction.” (Yes, he really talks like this.) “And many adult consumers who use it don’t feel the need to expectorate—or spit. That makes it a little more attractive to use.”

But is it any safer to use than Skoal? Or cigarettes? “Oh, we don’t make health claims,” Schwartz nervously pointed out. “That’s not something that we do as a company. Our objective as a company is to expand our category. There are millions of adult smokers in the U.S., and that universe of adult tobacco users is an opportunity to reach a new audience.” As anyone knows, it will not be identified as a serious new trend until Ikea starts stocking polyethylene spittoons.

—Patrick Donnelly