European Diary:The little ball of fine black tobacco fits snugly under my upper lip. Within seconds it begins working its magic, dispensing nicotine into the blood stream. Those tortuous cigarette cravings, which have blighted every trip to the pub since I quit smoking six months ago, disappear almost immediately under the calming effects of "snus".
Depending on who you talk to, snus is either the new wonder drug capable of helping to wean hopelessly addicted cigarette smokers off their packs of 20, or Big Tobacco's latest weapon to keep people hooked on nicotine products.
The EU banned the sale of snus in 1992 after the World Health Organisation concluded that "oral use of snuffs" is carcinogenic. But last month the European Parliament asked the European Commission to re-evaluate whether snus can play a role in helping smokers to quit.
"No-one is saying that snus is in any way good for you; it may cause a variety of cancers, but it is suspected that Sweden's low cancer mortality rate may be connected to its use, as people make the switch from cigarettes," says British MEP Liz Lynne, founder of the MEPs Against Cancer group.
"Many anti-smoking campaigners have argued that if smokeless tobacco significantly reduces the health risks for users and those around them, as there is no passive smoke, then perhaps we should look again at snus as part of a harm-reduction strategy."
Sweden, which joined the EU in 1995, negotiated a special derogation during its accession negotiations with the union to enable it to continue to sell snus. Norway is also a purveyor of smokeless tobacco, which sells at €3 -€7.50 for about 20 hits, each lasting 30 minutes.
"Snus is culturally very important for Swedes. The ice hockey team bring bags of it to world championships, old men use it and recently women have begun to use it as a way to give up smoking," says Marianne, a Swedish journalist in Brussels who is one of my few sources of the tobacco product.
"It is possible the Swedish referendum to join the EU would not have passed without the snus opt-out won by the government."
Yet cultural considerations have not stopped the EU from cracking down on states that do not enjoy a derogation from its ban on snus. In October the European Commission said it would ask the European Court of Justice to impose daily fines on Finland over the refusal of its Aland Islands to stop selling the tobacco. The islands face a €2 million once-off fine and daily fines of €20,000 if they don't pass new legislation to ban the sale of all types of chewing tobacco and snus.
The islanders' only hope is that the parliament's request to ask the EU executive to re-evaluate the snus ban, combined with intensive lobbying by the tobacco industry, will lead to a reversal of the 15-year-old European ban on the oral tobacco.
British American Tobacco (BAT) is one of several big tobacco firms pressing EU regulators to lift the ban on snus as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitments. Its CSR report, which was published last month, argued snus could reduce smoking rates by offering an alternative to starting smoking, helping smokers to quit and by containing fewer health risks. The firm accounts for 10 per cent of snus sales in Sweden and it is running pilots in South Africa and Canada.
But health advocates are deeply suspicious of the tobacco companies' motives. Sir Alexander Macara, vice-president of the Standing Committee of European Doctors, said legalisation of snus in the EU would prove a huge boost for the tobacco industry and threaten EU citizens' health.
"There is a danger that people who have got the message that smoking is a bad idea will be influenced by the legalisation of snus to think tobacco is not that harmful. Young people could take up this habit and then move on to smoking," says Macara, who notes that snus contains more nicotine than cigarettes, so is more addictive.
"Snus may not be as harmful as smoking but it increases the risks of cardiovascular problems and pancreatic cancers, a cancer that is often a death sentence," says Macara.
The final say on whether snus can be sold legally in the EU rests with EU health commissioner Markos Kyprianou, a reformed smoker who is waging a campaign to try to create a smoke-free Europe by the time he is due to leave office in 2009.
The commissioner considers snus a "harmful product", so the odds are against him agreeing to lift the ban anytime soon.
So for former smokers like myself that means no access to snus to help dull the cigarette cravings in the pub. Yet given the highly addictive nature of oral tobacco, that could prove to be a godsend for those hoping to kick all types of tobacco for good.