Dissolving Tobacco: ‘Candy’ to feed nicotine addiction

Who ever thought that tobacco companies would come up with a way to market a tobacco product that does not light up or need to be spit out? Camel Orbs and other forms (sticks or strips) are being marketed now. It is interesting, a dissolving product that delivers from 0.6 to 3.1mg of nicotine (depending on form vs. 1mg per usual smoked cigarette). It is made from ground tobacco, and flavored. You would think given the dose of nicotine delivered that it is considered at least an over the counter agent?

I learned of this from a recent newsletter for clinicians (Here is the link where the article is posted:http://www.smartbrief.com/servlet/wireless?issueid=41F0A8DB-0D52-4644-A460-C671DA25785E&sid=4424389f-4968-420d-b19a-428ead999285). I think they missed the boat on the focus to report: that babies or children might accidentally put the small tic-tac size ‘candies’ in their mouth and ingest toxic doses of nicotine. This report follows a study from Connelly et al.( 2010) in Pediatrics (http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/papbyrecent.dtl). This is a concern to be sure. Adults might shake out a few from their childproof container and leave them where a child could find them. In addition, the ‘candies’ are flavored, so they taste good and encourage eating more than one? An important point and users should beware.

A bigger concern, is that tweens and teens might be interested in trying this substance for the effects of nicotine without smoking! It even tastes good. Let’s see if we can hook a whole new generation on tobacco and call it candy this time. Not a good idea. There are enough other substances in the world to get hooked on. Do we really need a new one? I can see the rationalizing already, it isn’t smoked so won’t cause lung cancer, secondary smoke, etc…

When a product delivers a pharmacologically active agent like nicotine, shouldn’t it require strong regulation? More than that of a tic tac? Particularly when we have reams of data about how addictive the substance is? I don’t think this is much different than other nicotine products, which pharma created and I’m sure went through many hoops to get approved. Shouldn’t this product be treated the same way?

The New York Times coverage of this story yesterday, (here is the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/business/19smoke.html) identifies that in fact the FDA does regulate tobacco now… R.J. Reynolds did submit documents showing research and other material about this new ‘candy’, but the FDA still has 2 years to determine the safety of the product. I guess they can begin marketing it before we know its safety?

From what I can find, they are also available as ‘sticks’ (like a toothpick that dissolves) and ‘strips’ (like a breath mint strip). Here is a picture of the product, in case you are interested: