Zuka Snuff launches Zuka Black and Zuka Zee.

An exciting new product is about to bring back the use of Snuff to the UK, as well as offer a brand new alternative for smokers following the recent smoking ban.

Snuff hasn’t been widely used in the UK for over a hundred years, but Zuka is about to release two cheeky new products that are designed to give users a refreshing boost.

Zuka Black (tobacco-based) is based on an ancient recipe and contains a mild blend of tobacco flavoured with citrus fruits to give the user a pleasant snuff experience. Following the arrival of the smoking ban, Zuka Black also offers smokers a way of getting their nicotine without harming anyone around them. Zuka Black is also considerably less harmful for smokers because it is free from the gases like carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide that are released when cigarettes are smoked.

Zuka Zee (tobacco-free) is a totally natural menthol flavoured tobacco-free snuff, made from glucose blended with iguana fruit and can give you an immediate energy impact which promotes concentration, efficiency and a general feeling of well being and poses no risk to your health.

Rather than being loose packed in a tin or tub, Zuka products are packaged similarly to a cigarette packet, with a sleek diagonal snap top open lid. Inside is a cotton handkerchief with instructions. Unlike old-fashioned snuff, which has to be placed on the back of the hand or a flat surface to be taken, Zuka comes in a cheeky bullet shaped dispenser that feeds a chamber which can be loaded and sniffed from.

Phillip Rudd, of Zuka commented: “Above all, this is about bringing snuff into the twenty first century and making it available to a totally new generation.

The last time snuff was being widely used in the UK Darwin’s Origin of Species had just been published, we were fighting the Crimean War and the French were revolting. So
it was important to bring it right up to date and develop two totally new types of snuff that are more suited to the modern British social scene.”

The products have a recommended retail price of £4.99 and are now on sale at more than 3000 bars and clubs across the UK. Zuka has also been available at festivals throughout the summer.

Phillip Rudd added: “Because snuff has lain dormant for more than a century it’s an option that simply won’t have occurred to the majority of smokers. At least this way those smokers that wish to continue enjoying tobacco after the ban can get their nicotine in a socially acceptable way that doesn’t require them to stand outside in the rain every time they want to satisfy a craving. We have improved, refined and updated a product that we believe is going to get up everyone’s nose.”

Zuka Black and Zuka Zee can be obtained in single bullets from Snuff Store, at less than the RRP quoted above.

Check out the Zuka Snuff section.

Bookmark to:

Bavarian snuff video is a short clip taken in various locations in Germany of people using nasal snuff.

In the video, you’ll see Hans ‘the master snuffer’ snuff Gletscher Prise in a bar, as well as another snuff user taking nasal snuff at work.

Hans has a interesting snuff taking technique, he taps out a large ‘pinch’ of Gletscher Prise, then creates a line of snuff expertly on the back of his wrist, and then has a double snuffing method of sniffing the snuff with both nostrils over the line of snuff on his wrist… It’s a bit difficult to explain, so watch the snuff video below.

To view the video on You Tube click Bavarian Snuff.

Bookmark to:

Snuff news story items are becoming more common in national and local media, both on and off line.

We recently had a reporter purchase the below nasal snuff in order to write a piece on the snuff tobacco revival in the UK.

The online snuff order consisted of Kendal Brown, Packard’s Club, S’nuff, Red Bull, McChrystals Original & Genuine, Wilsons Best SP and Snuffy Weiss.

The surprising thing being that they didn’t ask for a snuff discount, nor a freebie - just ordered their snuff online, emailed in to tell us that they’d used the site, (as they intended writing a article on snuff) and would be including Snuff Store in the article!

As and when the snuff article is published, we’ll link it here. According to the reporter it will be in the next couple of months. The surprising thing being (although I’m not allowed to mention the name of the publication yet) is that it’s a magazine aimed at 20 to 30 year olds.

So look out for snuff news stories and feel free to link any you find in the comment section below.

Bookmark to:

The Blessings Of Snuff is a poem I stumbled upon a while back, whilst searching for snuff related material for this news blog.

The below is taken from information found on the Isle Of Man website.

John Frissell Crellin, Esq., was a connoisseur in snuff, and quite at a loss if by accident he happened to be unprovided with his favourite. Once, when on the bench at Castletown, he had forgotten his snuff box, on perceiving which, he despatched a message for it, and before its arrival wrote the following lines :-

The Blessings Of Snuff

You boast of the pleasures that friendship bestows,
And tell me it drives away care,
That it softens our sorrows, assuages our woes,
And blunts e’en the stings of despair.
I too have a friend, that can always impart
Enjoyments and comforts enough,
For, obtained, is the fondest desire of my heart,
When blest with abundance of snuff.

If heaven, in its wisdom, sends sources of grief,
I’m thankful the stock is no more;
I first take a pinch, and my heart finds relief,
Then I sneeze, and my troubles are o’er.

‘Tis thus I with fortitude brave every storm,
When the winds of affliction blow rough;
Let the fugitive evil assume any form,
So it be not a famine of snuff.

In search after happiness men are perplexed,
But few can the goddess obtain;
Some place her in this world, and some in the next,
But the wisest conjectures are vain.

They may tell you the nymph loves the glitter of gold,
And dwells with the miser–such stuff!
No; my pocket has always been found her stronghold,
And her palace, a box of good snuff.

The lawyer so graye, ere he opens his plea,
In obscurity finds it is hid;
But the bright gloss of knowledge illumines his face,
As he gives the three taps on the lid.

E’en the judge on the bench hears the sound with delight,
Be his countenance ever so gruff;
He bids the stern sentence of judgment take flight,
And mercy inhales with the snuff.

Why then should poor mortals ever despair,
Or suffer from any rebuff,
When to free themselves quickly from all sorts of ease,
The infallible remedy’s snuff?

Bookmark to:

Snuff Shop Story

I found a funny snuff shop article on the East Midlands Oral History Archive - here’s a link explaining about the East Midlands.

Anyway, the oral history archive is maintained by the University of Leicester as a joint project to conserve and develop oral history resources in the East Midlands.

In the transcript, the interviewee describes how she worked in a tobacco shop that sold snuff, she describes the smell of working in an old fashioned tobacco shop and how the local policeman played a trick on her, on her first day in the shop, over measuring of SP snuff.

“…we used to have a policeman come in, well he was my first customer, and he asked for these quarters of snuff because he took them for the police at the police station, and he always demanded to have it weighed up while he was there. So of course, I, he said quarters of snuff you see, so of course I went on measuring quarter pounds of snuff, and he stopped me on the third pack, and I remember it was the third quarter, and he said, “I think you’re wrong.” So my boss came in at that particular time, so she said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m measuring up the snuff for Mr Sheppard”, the policeman. So she said, “No, not quarter of pounds, quarter of ounces.”

You can listen to the recording and hear the lady talk about how the policeman pulled her leg for years over this ’snuff incident’.

To listen to the snuff shop lady, click snuff interview or click here to go directly to the page and read the full transcript.

Bookmark to:

Found a lovely poster titled Gulliver’s Snuff Box, inspired by the book Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift.

In the left pocket we saw a huge silver chest, with a cover of the same metal, which we, the searchers, were not able to lift. We desired it should be opened, and one of us stepping into it, found himself up to the mid leg in a sort of dust, some part whereof flying up to our faces set us both a sneezing for several times together.

You can see the snuff poster in better detail if you click Gulliver’s Snuff Box.

I’ve added Gulliver’s Snuff Box image to my Christmas list!

Bookmark to:

The Misleading And Harmful Public Message About Smokeless Tobacco is a report published on Biomed Central, the report is well worth reading if you are a smokeless tobacco user, selected paragraphs include :-

The use of Western smokeless tobacco (ST) products is associated with a very small risk of life-threatening disease (with estimates in the range of a few percent of the risk from smoking, or even less). This means that smokers can realize substantial health benefits by switching to ST, an obvious substitute. But consumers and policy makers have little chance of learning that ST is much less dangerous than smoking because popular information provided by experts and advocates overstates the health risks from ST relative to cigarettes.

The negative health consequences of smoking cigarettes are well known. What is less well known is that not all tobacco products create similar levels of risk. In particular, use of Western smokeless tobacco (ST) is substantially less harmful than smoking cigarettes. This should not be surprising, given that ST use does not expose the body to the harmful combustion products and assault on the lungs that result from smoking. But even many health experts do not realize there is a major difference, perhaps because of repeated messages about “tobacco” (usually referring just to cigarettes), which imply that all products made from this plant have the same health implications.

Health advocates, particularly those in public service, have an affirmative ethical duty to tell the truth. It is difficult to justify keeping the truth from people, even when knowing it might be harmful; it is clearly unjustified when it would be beneficial.

Read the report and draw your own conclusions.

Bookmark to:

Once upon a time when pigs spoke rhyme
And monkeys chewed tobacco,
And hens took snuff to make them tough,
And ducks went quack, quack, quack, O!

This is the rhyme at the beginning of the children’s fairy tale Three Little Pigs. I’m currently reading this to one of my sons as a bedtime story - it never fails to make me smile when reading it aloud!

Did a bit of research on it, it seems it was / is common to put a catchy rhyme at the beginning of traditional folk tales / fairy tales, to grab the listener’s attention.

Bookmark to:

Snuff, smokeless tobacco & The EU is a title we’ve created for a report by ASH Snuff EU Smokeless Tobacco in 2003.

This was a response to the positive information coming out of Sweden, (and other countries) who have a higher than normal percentage of their population using smokeless tobacco products such as SNUS as a alternative to cigarettes.

The report is well worth a read, quotes from the article include :-

Purpose of tobacco control.
The ultimate purpose of tobacco control campaigning and organisations should be clearly stated: in our view it is to reduce the burden of disease and death, mostly from cancer, cardio-vascular disease and lung disease, arising from tobacco use. The aim is not in itself to campaign against tobacco. Because of the dominance of the cigarette market, in most situations those two strategies coincide. However, there may be some situations where they conflict – where this is the case, we give priority to reducing disease. Such a case arises where two conditions are met:

a) Where the use of a tobacco product is substantially less hazardous than cigarettes;
b) Where that tobacco product may substitute for cigarette use or facilitate increased smoking cessation at individual and population level.

Smokeless tobacco also produces no environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and therefore eliminates an important source of disease in non-smokers and children. These are very substantial benefits in reduced risk to anyone that switches from smoking to smokeless tobacco and we believe the pubic health community has a moral obligation to explore this strategy. It is likewise ethically wrong to actively deny users the option to reduce their risk in this way.

This report is interesting when read in conjunction with other health reports that we’ll be adding to this section shortly.

Bookmark to:

The Snuff Box

A snuff box once was made
By King Frederick the Great,
Who carved it from a walnut log
Which made the box prideful agog.

A wood worm, smelling walnut chip,
came crawling at its fastest clip.
The snuff box spoke in tedious rhymes
About this Frederick and his times.

It praised Old Fritz’ generosity,
Which heightened the worm’s nervosity.
And drilling away said the maverick:
“I don’t give a damn about Frederick!”

Translated from German into English by Ernest A. Seemann
Die Schnupftabaksdose by Joachim Ringelnatz.

Die Schnupftabaksdose

Es war eine Schnupftabaksdose
Die hatte Friedrich der Große
Sich selbst geschnitzt aus Nußbaumholz
Und darauf war sie natürlich stolz.

Da kam ein Holzwurm gekrochen
Der hatte Nußbaum gerochen
Die Dose erzählte ihm lang und breit
Vom Friedrich dem Großen und seiner Zeit

Sie nannte den alten Fritz generös
Da aber wurde der Holzwurm nervös
Und sagte, indem er zu bohren begann:
“Was geht mich Friedrich der Große an!”

Die Schnupftabaksdose by Joachim Ringelnatz.

Bookmark to: