Smokeless tobacco products not a safe option, won't help smokers quit (AHA)

"Smokeless tobacco products should not be used as an alternative to cigarettes or for smoking cessation due to the risk of addiction and return to smoking, according to an American Heart Association policy statement. Smokeless tobacco products such as dry and moist snuff as well as chewing tobacco may also increase the risk of fatal heart attack, fatal stroke and certain cancers, according to the statement published online in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. 'No tobacco product is safe to consume,' said Mariann Piano, Ph.D., lead writer of the statement and a professor in the Department of Biobehavioral Health Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The statement also addresses a controversy over whether smokeless tobacco product use is a 'safer' alternative to smoking. The idea that smokeless tobacco products are preferable to cigarettes is based in part on the Swedish experience where there was a significant decrease in smoking among Swedish men between 1976 and 2002 which corresponded to an increase in the use of smokeless tobacco"