Odds of cancer using smokeless tobacco?

[Rickm]

I throw in about 2 dips a day, started doin that 2 weeks ago. I use the pouches.

Is it less harmless using the pouches? What are odds getting oral cancer using this?

[PeterM]

Two weeks ago you started down the road to one of the nastiest cancers there is. There is no "harmless" tobacco of any type. Given enough time the odds of oral cancer are way, way up there - no way anyone will put a number on it since everyone is different. You really don't want to go there.

[Jayaraman]

The use of tobacco continues to alarm health professionals, who envision a grim future for smokers. In the next 25 years, an estimated 500 million people will die from smoking, warns a recent study by WHO (World Health Organization). Research by WHO predicts that smoking will become the number one cause of death in the world by the turn of the century. “Today there will be 8,000 deaths a day from smoking, but when the kids reach middle age there will be something like 28,000 deaths a day,” said a WHO representative at the World Conference on Tobacco and Health in Perth, Australia.

After reviewing the findings presented in the 14th International Cancer Congress in Budapest, Hungary, Voice magazine’s science writer Laszlo Dosa notes: “The single common thread in the global cancer picture is the undeniable fact that tobacco is the largest preventable cause of cancer everywhere.” According to the World Health Organization, smoking causes 90 percent of all lung cancers. In addition, about half of all kidney-cancer sufferers are longtime heavy smokers. Some countries have already taken steps to control smoking. The Egyptian government, notes Voice, now urges religious leaders, doctors, teachers, and armed forces personnel to quit smoking and thus “set an example for the rest of the population.” Similar efforts to control smoking are under way in other Middle Eastern countries.

AS CURBS on the advertising of tobacco increase and education on the health hazards of cigarette smoking spreads in the Western world, the giant tobacco companies have turned to the East to peddle their wares. Studies funded by the World Bank predict that tobacco deaths in China could reach one million annually by the year 2010. The British Medical Journal stated that 100 million Chinese under age 29 will die as a result of smoking.

“Environmental tobacco smoke causes more deaths than any other man-made pollutant,” states Dr. Michael Popkiss, medical officer of health in Cape Town, South Africa. He was reacting to a pamphlet distributed by the Tobacco Institute of Southern Africa that claimed that inadequate ventilation was the problem. Dr. Popkiss explained that “tobacco smoke concentrations in buildings generally exceed the average air quality standards for clean air” and can result in lung cancer and heart attacks, as well as stunted lung growth in children. He said there was no way of ventilating or filtering the air in a building so that it is completely clear of tobacco smoke. He added: “The most effective technique to keep the air clear is to limit air pollutants at their source.” -