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Some people are of the mistaken belief that chewing tobacco will help them to stay healthier than if they were to smoke cigarettes. The World Health Organization reported that chewing tobacco and snuff are less dangerous than cigarettes but these kinds of tobacco products continue to raise the risk of oral cancer by 80 percent.

Smokeless tobacco is as addictive as smoking as it is made from the same tobacco plants and contains the very same toxins that create the addiction to cheap cigarettes. People who stop chewing tobacco get the same withdrawal symptoms as those who quit smoking.

Anti-smoking researchers have found that people who chewed tobacco and used snuff also had a 60 percent higher risk of esophagus and pancreatic cancer.

Paolo Boffetta, an epidemiologist at the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer, and his colleagues found that snuff and chew were less dangerous than smoking because they were not linked to lung cancer, but they are also dangerous because they raise the risk of oral cancer.

What is of more concern to anyone who is considering smokeless tobacco or is trying to break the habit is the fact that over half of the people that use smokeless tobacco will eventually suffer from Leukoplakia.

Leukoplakia is the condition that is a precursor to mouth cancer and appears as a white sore or plaque in the mouth. This is often mistaken for a callus and is common for people who chew tobacco so while they might not get lung cancer there is always the problem of cancer no matter what form of tobacco use.

Some people even think that smokeless tobacco helps them to perform better both physically and mentally. This hasn't been proven in scientific studies and is a misconception that some people have.