As the guys have already said, it's Scandinavian smokeless tobacco; basically the same as the Yank "Skoal" and "Copenhagen" brands, only better (and yes, I do speak from experience here[*]) -- and, apparently, manufactured in a somewhat different process (though I didn't know that). It's been used in this form in Sweden "since forever", which in this case means at least since the eighteenth century. (It is believed, at least as the popular explanation among non-historians, that it originated when some nobleman held out his snuff-box to offer a pinch of *nose* snuff to some peasant -- and farm-boy, simply not knowing how the stuff was supposed to be used, stuffed it in his gob.) It is also worth noting here that "Sweden", up until the early eighteenth century, meant not just the territory that is now known under that name, but also what is now known as Finland (including Åland).

As Sven so thoroughly documents, the EU -- consisting of twelve member states as it did then, before Austria, Sweden, and Finland joined -- "banned" the stuff in 1992. And at least ostensibly, the reason was indeed to protect the young; it was feared that snus, while possibly not in itself as dangerous as smoking, would still lure young people into tobacco use, get them hooked on nicotine, and then lead them on to smoking; thus, that it would, at least indirectly, lead to an overall increase of the detrimental effects of tobacco on public health. Ah, yes -- you're wondering why I write "banned" in quotation marks? Well, because the EU as such doesn't have the power to "ban" anything directly. Europe is not (yet) an integated nation-state, but a loose (albeit ever tighter) confederation of sovereign states. There are no "federal European" laws that bind me as a citizen; only pan-European "directives" that bind (more or less) *the member states* to issue national laws which, in turn, bind us citizens. So for instance this directive added to an earlier directive, 89/622/EEC, a new Article, 8a: "Member States shall prohibit the placing on the market of tobacco for oral use as defined in Article 2 (4)." [My emphasis.]

One thing I think the [link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snus|Wikipedia article] gets wrong -- just slightly, but still -- is this bit: "A popular movement during the run-up to the 1994 referendum for Sweden's EU membership made the exemption of EU's criminalization of snus a part of the membership treaty." First, I don't remember there being any organized "movement" campaigning to keep our snus. Sure, I might just plain have missed it -- but I rather still think what I automatically took for granted then, namely that the Swedish government realised all by itself that if it didn't negotiate an exemption, at least eight hundred thousand Swedish men -- out of a population slightly over eight million -- would vote NO. Second, as I understood it, the exemption they negotiated did not specifically mention Sweden by name, but was about "countries where it had traditionally been used". This is, at least, how I remember it being presented in Swedish media back then. (And it makes logical sense too, in that the whole pan-European seduce-our-youth scare had its origin in a vigorous attempt to conquer new European markets in the 1980s by... the Swedish Tobacco company!)

Now, up here in Scandalahoovia we have this phenomenon that I'm not sure if I can explain to you guys over on the wrong side of the Pond... Heck, I'm not sure if even our resident Britishers will understand it! It's the "We're too obedient!" whine; must be some inverted-pride thing, basically about how "WE Are Always Kowtowing To Brussels Much More Than Anyone Else" -- superficially trying to paint oneself as a spineless slave, while in actuality trying to point out what a good little Goody Two-Shoes one is, I think. In its full form, it goes something like this: "As soon as They[#] down there in Brussels[\ufffd] come up with some crazy directive, we go right ahead and implement it! I'm sure Down South[%] they just never bother, if it isn't something they themselves actually want to have! Why can't we be more like them?" The funny thing is, both Finns and Swedes are convinced this goes only for them, or at least that they are much, much worse at it than anyone else even comes close to being. It's only when you regularly travel between the two that you notice you're hearing the exact same "We're the worst!" whine in both places.

Now, remember how I made a point of noting Finland and Sweden used to be one and the same country, above...? Because of this common history, snus used to be common here in Finland, too. They had century-old snus brands of their own here -- I used to buy them, when I was here visiting my then-fiancée, before I moved here in 1995 -- so Finland certainly qualified as a country where snus had traditionally been used! I mean, heck, I saw reports in Swedish newspapers that Swedish Match (as it was now called) had started selling the stuff in Germany[+] again sometime around 1998 -- reasoning that their own exports there back in the eighties made it "traditional"!

But Finland went and banned it anyway, in binding Finnish national law, despite Sweden having negotiated an exemption that AFAICT was just as valid for Finland too.

And that's how Finland resoundingly wins the Kowtowing To Brussels Sweepstakes.

---

[*]: Personally, I'd tried the stuff a few times when I was in the Army, 1983-84, but only began using it regularly in the summer of 1987 (when I worked at a nuclear power plant -- it sometimes got so boring there was literally nothing else to do than to bum a pinch of snus off a workmate). I quit in, ehm, I think it was mid-September last year... Uh, no, year before last; 2004. I didn't *quite* quit "cold turkey"; I used nicotine chewing gum for some three to five weeks. I tried the American brands, "SKOAL Bandits" and "Copenhagen", occasionally over the years, but always found them inferior to the Swedish ones.

[#]: You know, "They". The men (and women) in bl-- uh, pinstripes, I suppose.

[\ufffd]: Always "Brussels". (I don't know how this works for the Belgians. Sven?)

[%]: i.e, in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece... Places like that, which up here are commonly suspected of harbouring a good deal of "Siesta, ma\ufffdana!" mentality.

[+]: Which therefore apparently is one example of a country that never got around to implementing the EU snus-ban directive in its own laws. But there had never been any wide-spread use of wet snuff in Germany before; if "Schnupftabak" (="snuff") means anything to a German, it's stuff you snort up your nose. (No, it's a black powder, not white.)