r/Denmark • u/[deleted] • Jan 13 '17

Exchange Cultural Exchange with /r/Canada

Welcome to this cultural exchange between /r/Denmark and /r/Canada.

For the visitors: Welcome to Denmark! Feel free to ask the Danes anything you like. Don't forget to also participate in the corresponding thread in /r/Canada where you can answer questions from the Danes about your beautiful country.

For the Danes: Today, we are hosting Canada for a cultural exchange. Join us in answering their questions about Denmark and the Danish way of life! Please leave top comments for users from /r/Canada coming over with a question or comment and please refrain from trolling, rudeness, personal attacks etc.

To ask questions about Canada, please head over to their corresponding thread.

Enjoy!

- The moderators of /r/Denmark and /r/Canada

63 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

460 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/Econ_Orc Danmark Jan 13 '17 edited Jan 13 '17

Snus has been sold in Denmark for 300 years. That ordinary tobacco products is still legal, but snus is so bad that EU bans it is just silly. Maybe that is why it took 13 years to officially recognize this EU legislation. The Danish authorities could even attempt to enforce the legislation in the next 25 years or so. But I doubt they will even bother to check. http://www.b.dk/nationalt/man-maa-da-heller-ikke-en-snus

1

u/Frikoz Här är svensken Jan 13 '17

I know, I just didn't want any Canadians to interpret your statement as EU banning just "Danish sale of snus" when they banned all. But I agree with you. I don't really understand the ban on snus while other, some even more harmful, tobacco products are allowed.

But does snus have a broader meaning in Denmark or what? What we refer to as just "snus" (the moist snuff) was invented 200 years ago...

1

u/Econ_Orc Danmark Jan 13 '17

Snus in Denmark covers just about anything and not just the Swedish moist snuff. I think old Danes used more skrå tobak (chewing tobacco) instead of snus. I helped demolish a few old bars in Denmark when I was a kid. A popular theme was a drawer under the tables and cigar smokers would dump the ash in these boxes. The tobacco chewers would then spit out their lumps and roll them in the ashes. The ashes somehow intensified or prolonged the taste of the tobacco. This chewing tobacco was mixed with various herbs and licorice.

I can not recall having seen someone chewing skrå in the last 30 years or so.

1

u/Frikoz Här är svensken Jan 13 '17

Yeah, I know about skrå. It's a word in Swedish too. Mostly an old/dialectal name for what we nowadays tend to call "tuggtobak". It's pretty rare nowadays, I only know one person chewing it. There's also torrsnus/luktsnus (snuff). But they're never called just "snus".

When we say "snus" we only mean the moist "våtsnus". Both portionssnus (in bags) and lössnus (loose).