Nicotine: Formidable foe, or Fucking awesome?

My earliest experiences with nicotine:

1- watching my dad attempt to quit smoking cigarettes with every socially acceptable method(no nasal snuff or human sacrifice), even pretending he had quit and sneaking cigarettes, to no avail.

2- watching a video in health class that had a former minor league baseball player "speaking" on the dangers of smokeless tobacco with half his lower jaw missing. Around the same time, hearing that people I generally didn't like were users.

Because of this, I wasn't going to predispose myself to any of these eventualities: hopeless addiction, deceiving people, missing parts of my body, or being a dick; just for the sake of the effects of a very mild drug.

Regardless, I ended up smoking mini-cigars and clove-cigarettes, not inhaling; believing that I received enough effect, with little compulsion to repeat afterward. It worked! Well, at least I thought it had some effect. One day I got the courage to inhale a clove cigarette. Not only did I feel fantasic while doing it and afterward, but I wanted one the moment in was extinguished and I looked at my empty hand.

Knowing I was at a crossroads, I gave the rest of the pack to a friend who smoked, knowing that if I had just one more the battle would be lost. I won that one.

Not knowing that smokeless tobacco was deliciously flavored, I assumed it tasted like plain cigarettes- which would be disgusting. But I slowly started noticing those shiny, inviting tins in convenience stores came in about a dozen flavors- many which sounded great. I still resisted, remembering how much I enjoyed a fully functioning jaw and mouth. One day a coworker(I worked outdoors) packed a huge lip of mint skoal and started spitting because he wasn't allowed to smoke.

The battle was on again. After researching that loose-leaf tobacco(instead of shredded) had the lowest cancer risk, I found some. It was called days-o-work plug tobacco, and it instantly sent my mouth on fire. Sometimes it tasted like chocolate, other times like a demons cum. I learned to focus my senses on the pleasant flavor, control the wad in my mouth and enjoy the buzz.

The buzz honestly didn't last through the whole pack, as I needed such huge portions of this stuff that it was nauseating. Before I knew it, I had purchased "straight" skoal. I assumed "straight" meant mostly unadulterated, but this had some kind of minty shit taste. The buzz...

I didn't know what a nicotine buzz was before using dipping tobacco. putting it right in the lower lip, you can almost feel pleasure rush into your body. Notably, it made my legs feel uncoordinated, my head very light, and on a few occasions- nauseated me, not unlike drinking alcohol.

After finding a flavor that wasn't terrible(peach), I went to town. The buzz was still so intense that I didn't use much- maybe once a day. I knew that I could never go back to being a complete non-user. Though the idea of maintaining a buzz throughout the day sounded awesome, that minor league baseball player still spoke to me, letting me know it wasn't all fun and games, making me feel ashamed to try to do it more than occasionally.

And then I heard about snus- a kind of oral tobacco which is not fermented, then steam-cured, rather than fire cured. This is comparable to the difference between black and green tea- and green tea kicks ass. As it turns out, much of the cancer-causing properties of tobacco are because of it's fermentation and curing. Snus eliminates almost all of the cancer risk, while also eliminating the need for spitting!

After I found out that snus can be bought mail-order, and the price even with shipping taken into account is the same per volume as mid-grade american dip tobacco, I was defeated. Nicotine has won the battle, but is that such a bad thing?

I tell my story because I consider myself lucky. Many snus users are using it now to stop or severely cut back their smoking. I have not inhaled more than one cigarette, knowing that smokeless is an option. I am also lucky that I didn't get hooked more effectively on american dip tobacco- never really finding my "every day brand" and succumbing to the urge to do it all day. Now, I can use snus without any real pull of the weasel to go back to dip or cigarettes.

I will have only a slightly elevated risk of cancer(hardly noticeable, read up!), no need to salivate constantly like some kind of mental-deficient, and be able to get a buzz on for the rest of my life(snus is 4-15 mg nicotine per portion instead of 1-3 mg for ciggs). My shame or doubt is gone, and my snus is coming in the mail.

Though many are not as fortunate as me to be smoke-free already, I suggest this course of action for anyone who likes nicotine. Cigarettes have twice the mouth cancer risk of even american dip tobacco, without even bringing up the lung damage. The buzz is better(with the right kind of snus), and you won't have to spit.

P.S. heavy caffeine intake + smokeless tobacco is sublime

P.P.S. "camel snus" and other american brands are not as effective as their swedish counterparts. mailorder it.