Does it hurt you to swallow dip spit?

[SirStev0]

Good question and yeah: proper research at this point can only be confined to a single lab, on a single grant. Yeah! schedule 1 or whatever nonsense....

It would have to be a big study, though. The benefits are very real to the people that actually need the leaves: high altitude dwellers/laborers that need the increased O2 > blood efficiency that coca affects. I wonder what similar consumption would mean for lower elevation, plains-based metabolisms and the overall negatives for both groups? Of course, diet always plays a role in all groups. Nutrition and science are effing complicated.

They don't need to .. They just need to do what has already been done, determine what chemicals are in the pure tobacco leaf and compare them to known carcinogens. No matter what .. if it has a known carcinogen in it and its a high enough dose, the odds are it can lead to cancer.

In tobacco.. it is often aromatic amines, which are naturally occurring, that are called out. Curing and fermenting it enhances them as well as other chemicals on top of the chemicals used in the process. When you smoke and/or digest those chemicals they are then further broken down to other chemicals, which may be more carcinogenic.

When you "chew" tobacco what you are essentially doing is taking nicotine from dip, putting it into a solution, and absorbing it through whatever membrane in comes into contact with (mouth lining, eso, stomach, etc).. that is then taken into the blood and makes the way to the heart. Same exact thing happens with every other soluble chemical that is small enough to either be absorbed or similar enough to be taken in thinking its something else..

TLR - Tobacco doesn't cause cancer, the naturally occurring carcinogens in tobacco cause cancer. Cupcakes could cause cancer too if you loaded them up with aromatic amines.

 

[SirStev0]

Why do people even use chewing tobacco? Serious question. Everything about it sounds like something out of a dystopian novel. I can't imagine what leads a person to try it for the first time.

They call it snuff .. because originally very finely cut cured tobacco was snorted (aka snuffed/sniffed) up the nose. Cigars and cigarettes used to be a rich man's treat.. think of all that went into. Pipes were more feasible. But all required some source of flame. Chewing and snorting it is easy and requires no additional equipment. Its absorbed directly without burning.

It was also popular for professions where a cig hanging out of your mouth with an open flame was a bad idea... Coal Miners, people working in fields or forests, or in the oil and gas industry.