While in Sweden a few months back, the Swedish Match guys told us about the General Long that they were going to be releasing. Well, more news came in today. The regular strength will be around the week of Sept 20th, and the strong will be here around the week of November 1st. (You can pretty much bet that online shops will ship well before those dates.)

Quite exciting. It’s like General Original and 01 made sweet, sweet love and made a baby. Then General turned around and did the same thing with 02. I bet they’ll be very delicious babies, indeed, but I’m going hold off speculating further for now…

Here are images and the technical mumbo jumbo:

General Long Portion
0,91g “Long” pouch, better fit
Total 24 g, ie 26 pouches/ 2 extra pouches
Optimized recipe, less runny but unchanged General taste

Declaration of Contents:

Tobacco
Water
Flavour enhancer (table salt)
Humectants (E1520)
Acidity regulator (E500)
Flavourings including smoke food flavour

Water approx. 50%
Nicotine approx. 8mg/0,91g pouch
Table salt approx. 3%

General Long Sterk
0,91g “Long” pouch, better fit
Total 24 g, ie 26 pouches/2 extra pouches
Optimized strong recipe, less runny
Declaration of Contents:

Tobacco
Water
Flavour enhancer (table salt)
Humectants (E1520)
Acidity regulator (E500)
Flavourings including smoke food flavour

Water approx. 50%
Nicotine approx. 14mg/0,91g pouch
Table salt approx. 3%

***

This release perfectly coincides with a special over at Northerner, which Chad writes about here. Basically it’s free shipping and a contest to win a shitload of snus (some minimums apply).

I’ve been balking at making any orders for awhile. Taxes, higher shipping costs and an endless supply of General White from my bar make it tough to pull the trigger on an online order that’s about 50% more expensive these days. This makes it a good time to finally do it. I’m down to about 12 tins of Roda, anyway, and the wife is plumb out of that wonky purified snus she loves so…

While the tin is cool and the shape sounds interesting (I haven’t seen it), I thought of something that would make it even better.

I must preface this with saying that this might be illegal in some jurisdictions. So, before any of you tobacco companies steal my idea, check with your dirtbag lawyers.

Mints in a little compartment in the snus tin. [Added because I think that may have been unclear.]

Not just mints (or not billed as “mints,” anyway)… Bill them as tobacco-breath neutralizing oral antiseptic tablets.

Doesn’t sound very revolutionary, but allow me to explain.

Imagine you pop in a snus at work. Your dickhead boss says, “What the fuck are you doing?” You offer him a mint and pull a “tobacco-breath neutralizing oral antiseptic tablet” out of your Catch tin. You get a promotion for your awesome breath and good manners.

Meh. this would probably be a failed product. And if it isn’t illegal, there would be new laws making it so in months.

…

In other news, Ettan White has gone star formation with a new tin. Tin looks fine.  Here’s a picture from buysnus’s facebook page. I’m warming up to the star formation. A couple notes on this. G-Rape must be next. Question is when…

The star machine was amazing, but still a little wonky when I saw it a few months ago. The way Larry described it to me, it was even wonkier a year earlier. Those crafty Swedish engineers will get that bastard running like a champ before long and we’ll have stars everywhere.

Again, I’m OK with this. I’ve gotten used to General White in this way, and it does look cool.

Back to G-Rape. The most important snus brands to Swedish Match are General, Catch, Ettan and G-Rape. General and Catch got stars last year. Ettan this month. G-Rape can’t long be star-free.

Finally, I’m down to about 15 tins of Roda. I’ve been subbing in General White and miscellaneous freezer snus. On thing I have a bunch of tins of is, in fact, Ettan white. I like it, but I like it best after that first smokiness mellows down and you get the taste of smooth tobacco.

Mints.

There are many, many reasons for this. From taking cash away from drug cartels to freeing up money from prisons and courts. But I’m not going to explain this from any of those typical angles. Let’s take a pro-snus look at what pot legalization could mean to us. Mostly it will make enemies of snus busy with something else.

First, it would provide another substance that governments could tax. That doesn’t mean our snus taxes would go down. It’s possible, however, that our snus taxes would go up less often. There are fewer pot smokers than tobacco users and even fewer of them vote. Easy fuckin’ target.

Second, it would give the “oh the children” fucktards another product to attack. Legal pot will get them spending more of their time and money on that demon.

And third, the pseudo-science douchebags might keep themselves busying making up lies about pot instead of tobacco.

I’m going to take this one step further. If you use tobacco and you’re anti-marijuana, you’re a hypocrite. They both fuck with your head a little and neither one makes you any more likely to rape, kill or steal. Can’t say that for drinking booze or watching Glen Beck.

After all, if it is legalized, we might one day see this:

General Green. I’d try it. Would you?

Other details are creepier. You have spend a 24 hour period at the clinic. You give your Camel Snus to the Camel Doctors, who you have to ask to give you portions when you want them. They also withhold the Camel Snus from you at some point.

Upside was $425. I would have used one tin of Camel Snus for that much scrilla, not weeks on end of it. Would you?

Check out the contract here (pdf).

I have no clue. I haven’t had any.

I did get this image and a solicitation from buysnus today. Catch Ease is coming out. Seems strangely early. I thought we were doing one every four months. Catch Glow came out in May. Should put this another month away. No matter.

Another question is if this snus will be FDA-approved for the U.S. Who knows? For now, it looks like the Swedish shops will ship it to us. Let me know if this turns out to be false.

Yet another question — and the most important one by far, in my opinion — is if world-famous snus bloggers (especially me) will get to taste this snus before it’s readily available online. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that the answer is “no.” It may be that it’s illegal for the manufacturer to mail it. It’s insanely stupid, but what are you going to do?

Some dude on Twitter got some. I think he hangs out near a dumpster behind Swedish Match’s offices. Here’s his tweet where he said that it’s the best snus ever made. I guess this will have to do for now…

***

One final thing. Before placing an order from Sweden, I’d call UPS to verify that my state taxes were really being taken care of. DrSnus doesn’t want any trouble with the tax man… Everyone else can bring it on.

Last week, I heard over at snuscentral that Camel Winterchill and Camel Robust were being released any day. On Saturday I stopped by a gas station near my house that carries Camel to see if it was there. No. Oh well. I didn’t bother looking anywhere else.I figure I’ll run into it eventually. I’m a little curious if Robust is the old Original from the trial. That wasn’t too nasty…

I did however stop by Spec’s (a liquor superstore) to check on their General fridge. I’d heard they were no longer carrying it, and wanted to see for myself. I found the fridge. Inside was one tin of General Loose. Seems to me that that means they sold at least 49 tins of snus. Don’t know how long they had it though. Makes me wonder about the other four Spec’s around these parts. More investigation later…

Anyway, while I was there I got try some cool local rum. It’s called Treaty Oak, and it was quite good.

Update:

Nearly forgot… the Senecas got a ruling on PACT. Basically, the mail ban stands, but they don’t have to collect taxes for now. But people who order from them are still responsible for the taxes. This will probably take years to ultimately settle.

One example: Lucky Strike White portions.

I used to get this stuff occasionally when I first quit smoking in 2007. I liked it back then because it was kind of a straight tobacco taste and the tin was pretty cool. Then I started learning a little more about snus, and the words on the side of the tin, “It’s Toasted,” started to worry me. Did that mean they put this snus in a toaster? Is that going to be bad for my face?

I don’t remember the progression precisely, but it was around the same time I got hooked on Goteborgs Rape white. I recall staying up really late one night and drunkenly falling in love with its oily flavor. At some point, however, Goteborgs Rape became the only snus that I can’t use at all. For some reason it makes me queasy. No. 2 doesn’t make me ill, by the way. This is probably an emotional problem.

Anyway, “It’s Toasted” no longer appears on the tins. I was right back then in that thinking something that was toasted might be bad for you. But I was wrong in that Lucky Strike, despite what the tin said, was not toasted.

Anyway, this snus tastes alright. It’s a little citrus and a decent tobacco flavor. But the thing that bugs me about these is that they’re really fucking small portions.

Math time. (As usual, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong). The tins have 19.2g of snus and there are 24 portions in a tin. 19.2g/24 = 0.8g

That’s 20% smaller than I’m used to. As a new snuser, I didn’t notice it, but now it feels like a mini — although they could have changed it since then, I don’t know.

Even stranger is that the bag doesn’t seem smaller. It’s like they reduced the size of the hot dog but left the bun the same. Check out this picture: Ettan White on the left, Lucky Strike White on the right.

They look about the same, but the Lucky bag is noticeably flaccid.

One more thing I want to share…

How to open Lucky Strike from the F&L website a while ago. Can’t find it on there now…

Let’s go back to an old topic that is neither dull nor trite: Health. It’s been a while since Chad and I got back from Sweden, and I’ve been putting off writing about what was probably the best presentation we were given. Dr. Lars-Erik Rutqvist was the last one from the Swedish Match to speak to us, and it was pretty incredible.

Just like Chad and I, Lars used snus to quit smoking. Unlike us, he’s a doctor — an oncologist, I believe. The upshot of it all was: snus is safe. Now, he’s a little bit more nuanced of a guy than I am, so he might not have said those words exactly, but that certainly was the impression I got. To illustrate the minor dangers associated with it, he compared it to coffee, a very addictive substance with small amounts of known carcinogens.  Where’s the ban on mailing coffee? Why aren’t we worried about our kids getting irrevocably hooked? Why isn’t it taxed $1.32 per ounce here in stupid Texas?

(note: Dr. Rutqvist did note that Brad Rodu first brought this analogy to his attention, and Dr. Rodu’s blog is well worth reading.).

It’s the smoke that does so much harm. Imagine if you smoked caffeine. It would be horrible for you.

I know what some may say. “But what about mouth cancer studies I learned about in my public school health class?” A lot of those studies anti-tobacco folks tout are quite old and none are about snus. Just the other day, thisisswedishsnus.com provided some nice links on the science behind harm reduction. Chad has a dozen health-related links over at snubie. And snuscentral has a few dozen.

So millions will die. (Obama too, perhaps, as he hasn’t yet responded to my offer for more snus.)

After all, that’s why these dumbfuck laws are so tragic. Snus makes it fairly easy to stop smoking. Around the U.S., disgustingly wretched state governments in Iowa, South Dakota and Massachusetts (a state, I always mistrusted due to the fact that women there seem to genuinely give a shit about baseball) have banned the mailing of snus altogether. They can’t order online. This is particularly shitty when you think of people who live outside of a city where General is available. In South Dakota, you’re pretty much fucked, I imagine. It’s huge and there’s probably not a city worth a turd in the whole place.

Still, even in little Massachusetts, you’ll likely only find snus in Boston, which could be hours away. Read this letter a woman wrote to the Mass. Attorney General.

Fucked up, isn’t it?

What can you do? I don’t know. We could sign this petition, but our government doesn’t care what we think.

As I’m sure you’re aware, PACT joined us this past week. While the tax part is annoying, I understand it. Your government wants your money, it can get it however it wants to, more or less.

It the USPS ban that so fucking stupid congress and the president should be sent to clown school. I’ve never once heard of a kid who got smokes on the Internet. I’m not saying it’s never happened. Rather, if you want to keep tobacco out of kid’s hands, you should ban tobacco sales in convenience stores and raise the age limit to buy tobacco to 21.Why? Because stupid kids under 18 get their friends who are exactly 18 to by smokes from them at convenience stores. And about 1 in 10 guys who work at these places will sell to anyone. Why? Probably just stupidity, laziness or greed.Perhaps all three.

Luckily, it may well be unconstitutional to ban the mailing of tobacco. Some 140 Seneca online tobacco sellers got a restraining order allowing them to continue to ship via the post office.

They claim the law violates:

the Commerce Clause
the Import-Export Clause
the Due Process Clause
the Equal Protection Clause
the 10th Amendment
Native American treaties

Now, I have no idea whether these claims are true or not. But I do like that there are so many of them. I also think it would be awesome if this shit got struck down. However, I doubt it will.

Meanwhile, people trying to buy snus online over the past week or so have had problems. I’m going to quote a reader of my blog and my response here:

—

Mark Mitchell commented: Hmmm. As the good Doctor and brother Chad have without doubt noticed things are not going as swimmingly for The Northerner as they, and pretty much everyone else, had hoped. The PACT transition is proving to knotty in the extreme. Of course the fullness of time will insure that order emerges from the current chaos but a heck of a lot of ill will is being generated in this confused and testy interregnum.

I responded: I’ve read about the problems people are having and it is unfortunate. However, we’re just one week since they implemented their new software. They’ll surely figure their shit out. If it takes a month, I wouldn’t be surprised. They now have to deal with about 50 tobacco licenses, 50 sets of reports and pay taxes to 50 jurisdictions. It’s a fucking nightmare, and seems all but impossible. Keep in mind how many snus shops got out the business to avoid this mess. As far as ill will goes, again, I get it, but it’s misdirected. Call you congressman. Your representatives did this on your behalf. Anyway, whatever ill will it generates doesn’t matter much. Where else are we going to buy from?

—

Now, if you read anything about snus anywhere on the web, you knew PACT and the FDA were on the way. Here’s what I did to prepare:

I’m sure Northerner will figure out what’s going on before I run out.

And, awesomely, the General fridge at my cigar bar now has a cool dispenser contraption:

As you can see, we’re low on snus. Order’s on the way, I hear.

Northerner has said that the new tax collection scheme will be implemented any day now, but definitely by Monday (6/28). The clock is ticking… The the details are here. Most interestingly, is their availability list:

- Gotlandssnus (Gotlandssnus and Jakobsson’s brands)
- Swedish Match (all brands)
- V2 Tobacco (Thunder, Offroad, Rothbrix and Fellinni)
- Gellivare (Gellivare and Landströms)
- Gajane (all brands)

Some surprises here. We’ve been trying to find out definitively whether or not Skruf was going to be available. Northerner had been saying it would be while SnusCentral had been saying it wouldn’t. I tried to contact Skruf, and they did not respond. Larry got in touch with some bigwig over there a few weeks ago, and got a somewhat cryptic answer. Be that as a it may, for now, Skruf is a no show to the PACT party.

Also, Gajane came through. There had been question marks for a long time as their usually secretive weirdos. This is good news as their Oden’s line seems like it has many fans.

Like Northerner, Buysnus is now only shipping with UPS to the U.S. Over there, one roll costs about $10 to ship. Five rolls costs about $30.

And swedishsnus.com, for now, is still shipping with the regular post. Interestingly, they’ve created a some kind of joint venture with clubsnus.com. How this will work out, I don’t know (a short press release is at clubsnus.com). Swedishsnus has kept the dirt-cheap prices from when it was run by Swedish Match. Could be interesting to see what happens. However if the regular mail option goes away, shipping could be quite pricey. UPS shipping for one roll now costs $30, while five costs $41.

Clearly, going forward, you’ll need to make big orders to have it any make economic sense. Otherwise, it’ll probably be cheaper to go to your local retailer. Especially if you can work out a bulk deal with him.

Of course, this assumes you like General Snus, for now.

Thunder Frosted and Wintergreen, Jakobsson’s Wintergreen and Oomph will be showing up in stores in the near future.

If I were the General, I’d get my extra strong in my refrigerators asap.