The use of smokeless tobacco sees an individual put the product in their mouth – between their lip / cheek and their gums. The type of tobacco used for these types of products is completely none combustible, meaning that it cannot be set alight and catch fire. When it comes to the market for this stuff in the United States of America, there are two distinct types – snuff (this includes snus) and chewing tobacco.
Wet snus and snuff is tobacco that has been cut that is either in a pouch or loose and is placed inside of the mouth. The dry version of this is either powdered or cut and is usually consumed by sniffing it up through the nostrils. Finally, chewing tobacco is tobacco that has been cured and comes in either the form of twisted, plugged, or loose leaves.
Smokeless Tobacco Use
In the United States of America it has been estimated that some 720,000 students of high school age (that equates to roughly 4.8percent) use smokeless tobacco products. More worrying however is the 280,000 students of middle school age (around 1.8 percent) that use smokeless tobacco products.
In addition to this, there are around 840 youths who are under the age of 18 years in the United States of America who use some sort of smokeless tobacco product for the very first time, indicating that the market for this stuff continues to grow.
How Smokeless Tobacco Is Regulated
It is the job of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate everything from the packaging, manufacturing, and importing, to the promoting, advertising, and distributing of smokeless tobacco products. As part of their regulating of smokeless tobacco products, they also look at nasal and oral sprays.
It was in October of 2019 that the FDA allowed for the very first time advertising to be displayed that promoted the fact that smokeless tobacco products come with a lesser risk to some certain health conditions than conventional tobacco products that are consumed via smoking. These products include the likes of tobacco free dip.
The Manufacturing of Smokeless Tobacco
For those companies that either fabricate, manufacture, mix, modify, make, import, process, relabel, repack, or label smokeless tobacco products, they must comply directly with the full range manufacturing requirements.
One of these requirements is ensuring that the products come with the correct warning statements and warning plans on them. The full list of requirements can be found on the FDA website. Should you have any questions or need clarification on any points then the FDA can also help with this.
Importing Smokeless Tobacco
When and where smokeless tobacco products are imported into the United States of America, it must comply with all of the requirements as set out by the FDA. For any company that is unsure about the finer details of all these requirements, they can be obtained directly from the FDA website. More specifically, they can be found within the FDA Regulatory Procedures Manual (Chapter 9 – Import Operations and Actions).
