I wasn't using my gums, anyway

A couple of large, padded envelopes showed up on my desk one day last week. That's not unusual. Operating two newspapers out of the same office, we often get press releases and other materials in duplicate. What was in the envelopes? Well, that's where things get interesting.
As I write this column, I have sitting on the desk in front of me two packages of something the manufacturer has decided to describe as "dissolvable tobacco" — wintergreen flavor! — and two packages of something called hard snuff — "Spit Free," the box announces in red letters.
That's right. Mr. Postman brought me a veritable jackpot of addictive, cancer-causing substances. Outside of the thin mints the Girl Scouts send each year to announce the start of cookie sales it's the most potentially habit-forming press release I've ever been sent.
I realize the tobacco industry doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to the methods it uses to get people hooked on its products. Still, sending out samples through the mail seems sketchy even for people who chose pitch their products with a phallus-faced cartoon camel.
I don't know quite what to make of these particular products. According to the press release that accompanied my gum disease-causing gift, smokeless tobacco like Ariva and Stonewall — the names of these particular products — is "between 10 and 1,000 times less hazardous than smoking depending on the product." That's nice, I guess. But isn't that a little like saying my chances of ever getting a date with Charlize Theron are between 1,000 and 1,000,000 to one, depending on how much she's had to drink? Star Scientific, the company behind what I've decided to identify as suckable tobacco, recently added 40 new distribution centers, which the release claims are "capable of making the products available to approximately 50,000 retail outlets." Just like I'm "capable" of treating Charlize to a lovely dinner. You know, assuming she doesn't mind ordering from the dollar menu.
The packaging for both Ariva and Stonewall looks like a hybrid of a cigarette pack, a box of cold medicine and a package of chiclets. The individual pieces of Ariva, which come 20 to a pack, are sealed in plastic blisters like Sudafed. The football-shaped Ariva pieces are about the size of a pea. The similarly shaped Stonewall is roughly twice as big. I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to use them to ease a nicotine craving or clear up sinus pressure.
I'd like to tell you what these things taste like, but I've never used a tobacco product in my life. And as dedicated as I am to my readers I'm not going to start with something that looks vaguely like it should be sold on a street corner somewhere.
The back of each package has instructions, which seems like a bad sign when the only major step is putting something in your mouth. Still, the box strongly recommends against chewing the piece or swallowing it whole. Nothing ominous about that. Or about the warning on the bottom of the box that either product might cause gum disease and tooth loss. Or the warning that oral tobacco products can cause dizziness, heartburn, hiccups or nausea. No wonder they're giving this stuff away.
I imagine products like Ariva and Stonewall will become more popular as legislators continue to ferret out every last place a Minnesotan might try to light up a cigarette. This might explain Star Scientific's new marketing campaign for the products: "Better than Cigarettes® — Find out Why." Granted, when you're sucking on a lozenge of tobacco there's no secondhand smoke to worry about. And we've already covered the spitting issue. All we'll really have to worry about is a bunch of dizzy, queasy tobacco-suckers with no teeth and rotting gums.
Apparently, the convenience store industry is sold, though. An article in the April 2007 issue of Convenience Store Decisions calls Ariva and Stonewall "the future of tobacco use in the 21st century." I'm not sure how many other options there are for our future tobacco use, but I imagine people wadding tobacco leaves up and sticking them in their ears.
Me? I'm waiting until cookie time rolls around again.