MOSCOW, January 25 - RAPSI. An amendment prohibiting the sale of snus and naswar will be proposed during the second hearing of the smoke-free law in the State Duma on Friday, said Dmitry Noskov, chairman of the State Duma Committee for Physical Fitness, Sports and Youth Affairs.

Alexei Nadezhdin, section head at the National Research Centre for Narcology at the Russian Ministry of Healthcare, said that the nicotine content in naswar is considerably higher than in cigarettes.

"Naswar is the coarsest and the most dangerous form of tobacco. People become addicted to it much faster than to cigarettes and this dependency is much harder to break," Nadezhdin said.

He added that 90% cases of lip and gastric cancer in Uzbekistan are the result of naswar usage, which is a traditional form of tobacco in that Central Asian republic.

The State Duma adopted the smoke-free law on the first reading on December 14, 2012.

The bill will introduce a smoking ban in public places in 2015 and will ban the sale of cigarettes in kiosks and will require cigarette packets to feature graphic warnings from May 2013.