Moist Plug

COMMON NAMES:

Chewing tobacco, spit tobacco

GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION OF USE:

United States

PRODUCT CONSTITUENTS:

Enriched tobacco leaves, fine tobacco, sweetener, and/or licorice

HOW USED:

Chewed or held between the cheek and lower lip. Saliva is spit or swallowed.

WHO USES:

In 2000, U.S. prevalence of current (used within the past 30 days) smokeless tobacco use (includes both snuff and chewing tobacco) for those 12 years old and over was 3.4%: 6.5% of males and 0.5% of females.

PROCESSING / MANUFACTURING:

Commercially manufactured. Enriched tobacco leaves (Burley and bright tobacco or cigar tobacco) or fragments are wrapped in fine tobacco and pressed into bricks. Moist plug tobacco has at least 15% moisture. Most plug tobacco is flavored and sweetened with licorice. Plus tobacco is packaged as a compressed brick or flat block wrapped inside natural tobacco leaves. Typically weighs 7 to 13 ounces. Sugar content is approximately 24%.