If you are a smoker then at one point or another you would probably have tried to quit smoking. Maybe as a New Year's resolution, maybe because you just wanted to feel healthier. You would have probably tried going cold turkey, lasted a few days then at the first stressful moment or the next time you were sitting in your local with your favourite beer in front of you, you would probably have headed straight for the nearest cigarette machine.

I would imagine that you would have tried patches, nicotine chewing gum (eek!), made yourself look really cool with a nicotine inhaler, tried smoking cigars instead and maybe you would even have visited Paul McKenna or your local hypnotist. However, for a large number of you this wouldn't have worked and you will still be puffing away.

Well how about giving snuff a shot?

Being an ex heavy smoker myself I have already managed to cut down considerably by using snuff and will only rarely have a cigarette now. How did I do it you may ask? Well, snuff comes in really handy when you have those desperate nicotine cravings. Those times when you are dying for a cigarette like after a coffee, when you come home from work, when you're twiddling your thumbs and biting your nails in a (smokefree) pub. A pinch of snuff will quite simply take those cravings away and because the nicotine uptake from snuff is a lot quicker than with cigarettes you will feel an almost instant relief. However, I must warn you all that it probably isn't the best replacement for the post coital cigarette - snuff in this situation probably isn't the most attractive option!!!

There also seems to be a growing consensus that snuff is a very effective nicotine replacement and in 1985 Cancer Research UK reported that there was no evidence of any health risk:

"Snuff seems an entirely acceptable substitute for smoking and could be recommended for addicted smokers because, if they could substitute snuff-taking for smoking, they would greatly reduce the risk to their health,"

See also Is Snuff Tobacco Healthy?