Lots of people who quit cigarettes to escape the dangers of nicotine are turning to water pipe smoking, wrongly assuming that toking on “hookahs” is safer, new research indicates.
Researchers used questionnaires and collected information on 871 Canadians aged 18 to 24 and found that 23% had used water pipes, commonly known as hookahs, during the previous year.

Water pipe users were more likely to have used psychoactive substances such as marijuana, the researchers say.

The youths who used water pipes tended to be younger, male, English speakers who didn’t live with parents but whose moms and dads had higher household incomes than other study participants.

Hookahs Healhier? No

A hookah is a single or multi-stemmed, often glass-based device used for smoking tobacco. The smoke is cooled and filtered by passing through water. They are popular in many areas of the world. But the study authors say the notion that hookah is safer than smoking cigarettes is erroneous.

“Little is known about the addictive nature or health risks of water pipe smoking, but it may be at least as harmful as cigarette smoking,” the authors write.

Water pipe smoke contains nicotine, carbon monoxide, and carcinogens and may contain even greater amounts of tar and heavy metals than cigarette smoke, the researchers say. Water pipe smoke has been linked to lung cancer, heart disease, infectious diseases, and pregnancy-related complications.

Researchers say that water pipe smoking has increased recently in North America and Europe.

Among their findings:

* Hookah use was markedly higher among people who had smoked cigarettes, used tobacco products, drank alcohol, or engaged in binge drinking.
* Water pipe use also was higher in people who had smoked marijuana or who had used illicit drugs in the past year.
* Hookah users may constitute an advantaged group of young people who have the leisure time, resources, and opportunity to smoke water pipes.

The authors note that at least one researcher reported that a single session of smoking a water pipe might be equivalent to smoking two cigarettes for a non-daily hookah user, or 10 cigarettes for a daily water pipe smoker.

The World Health Organization has said that hookah use is equivalent to smoking 100 cigarettes in a 200-puff session. But outside the Middle East, few studies have been done on the subject.
Hookah Use in U.S.

In the U.S., between 9% and 20% of college students said they had used a water pipe in the past month. A 2006 Canadian study found that 7% of children in grades seven to 12 reported they had used a water pipe, and 3% in the past 30 days.

The researchers attribute use of water pipes, at least in part, to lack of publicity about possible dangers and the perception that smoking through a water pipe is less addictive than cigarette smoking.

That is a danger, they say. People who don’t smoke cigarettes may try smoking with a water pipe because of the notion that it is less harmful. To prevent this, the researchers say, more study is needed to gather evidence that might help people make more informed decisions.

The study is published online in advance of the June print issue of the journal Pediatrics.

By Bill Hendrick, WebMD Health News

Tobacco companies are not philanthropic institutions. As long ago as 1967 the late Senator Robert Kennedy said, “the cigarette industry is peddling a deadly weapon. It is dealing in people’s lives for financial gain”.

The Australian tobacco industry is dominated by three big companies (or in modern political parlance, three “great big” companies), British American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Imperial Tobacco – all overseas-owned, with decisions made not in Sydney or Melbourne but in London and New York.

These are tough and ruthless multinational corporations, promoting and selling a product that kills one in two of its regular users. They have known for sixty years that their product is lethal. During this time almost one million Australians have died because they smoked – while the tobacco companies have denied and downplayed the evidence, doing their utmost to oppose and delay any action that might be effective in reducing smoking. Around the world their products cause five million deaths a year – a figure which will only increase as their drive into developing countries bears lethal fruit.

The new Chief Executive of Imperial Tobacco, Alison Cooper, was recently reported in the UK media as still refusing to accept that smoking causes cancer. Small wonder that only last week a survey of the reputations of the UK’s largest 150 companies had Imperial Tobacco at 147 and British American Tobacco at a rock bottom 150.

There is massive evidence from once-confidential industry documents now available following litigation in the US that for decades tobacco companies have acted more cynically than even tobacco campaigners might have thought – summarised by a quote from an industry executive – “We don’t smoke this shit, we just sell it. We reserve the right to smoke for the young, the poor, the black and the stupid.”

And as if all this were not enough, the industry has been found guilty of racketeering in the US.

Tobacco companies have only one aim, in London, New York or Canberra. In line with their responsibility to their shareholders, they spend money with the sole purpose of benefiting their interests.

So why would anybody want to take money from this pariah industry?

The Australian Electoral Commission website reports that in recent years both the Philip Morris company and British American Tobacco have been generous donors to the Liberal Party and the National Party. During the year 2008/9 Philip Morris contributed $158,000 to the Liberal and National parties around Australia.

No doubt in addition to direct contributions there is also much indirect funding from groups supporting and representing tobacco companies, but this is much harder to pin down.

The only reason for these contributions is to further the interests of tobacco companies. The website of the British American Tobacco company is quite explicit about political donations: “Such payments can only be made for the purpose of influencing the debate on issues affecting the company or Group…”

A review of tobacco industry political donations in the US, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, concluded that, “tobacco industry monetary contributions are closely related to the way a legislator votes on tobacco issues”, and “The more campaign contributions received by a Congress member, the more likely he/she votes pro-tobacco on tobacco-related bills”.

Political donations are not simply about an intention to buy direct support: they are also about much less tangible benefits gained through indirect support, influence, contacts, access and credibility.

The Greens and Democrats took the lead in refusing tobacco industry funding, followed by the ALP. The other major parties understand the dangers of smoking; they know exactly why tobacco companies want to give them money; it is hard to imagine that they would knowingly take money from drug dealers – and yet they seem content to accept contributions from an industry whose products cause more than 80 per cent of Australia’s drug deaths. Surely there is something awry with the moral radar of anyone who accepts this kind of blood money.

The argument we sometimes hear that this is a “legitimate industry” is old and tired. If cigarettes were a new product they would not be allowed on the market. Our parliaments have decreed that the product is so harmful that it should not be sold to children and adolescents, should not be advertised, and that its sales should be subject to ever-increasing controls. This is no ordinary product, no ordinary industry.

The Australian government now leads the world in action to reduce smoking, complementing strong action in most jurisdictions (other than the Northern Territory, whose lack of interest in tobacco remains a mystery).

It is time for all political parties to refuse tobacco funding, or for legislation that forbids such contributions from companies that still seek to oppose the work and recommendations of governments and health authorities, and whose products cause 15,000 Australian deaths each year when used precisely as intended. Then we can be assured that all parties are making policy on this vital public health issue free of the taint of association with tobacco companies, and free of any suspicion that their policies might be influenced by these disreputable, lethal donors.

Mike Daube is Professor of Health Policy at Curtin University.

Tucked between the new high-speed cigarette-makers and pack-loaders in Philip Morris USA’s giant South Richmond plant, there now are lots of head-high, Plexiglas-walled boxes.
Inside, robot-arms load rolls of cigarette paper or package and carton blanks, keeping a continuous feed of material flowing. Overhead, a conveyor belt, also walled in with clear plastic, forms an eight-loop-high spiral of cigarettes.

The extra 3 feet between the cigarette-making machines and the beeping driverless cars that bring pallet-loads full of cigarettes to the loading docks are visible signs of a $230 million investment that the nation’s No. 1 cigarette-maker has made to consolidate operations in Richmond.

“We’re about 98 percent done,” Eric Schardt, director of cigarette manufacturing, said about the changes at the plant, during a rarely offered tour of the secure area.

“And we did it while continuing to produce product.”

The investment came as Philip Morris USA, a unit of Henrico County-based Altria Group Inc., consolidated all its cigarette-making in Richmond last July, when it closed its relatively new plant in Cabarrus County, N.C.

With the consolidation and the modernization here, the Richmond plant now makes about 149 billion cigarettes a year.

Adding to the challenge of doing everything in one place is that Philip Morris USA has launched dozens of new varieties in the past few years.

It now makes 27 different kinds of Marlboros in 43 different kinds of packaging. In addition to Marlboros, Philip Morris makes 88 other kinds of cigarettes in 114 packages.

It puts a premium on flexibility and on cranking out lots of cigarettes.

“We can handle orders from 360,000 a day of one brand to 500 million of another, at the extreme,” Schardt said.

. . .

Each of the new machines in Bay 1 can produce 10,000 cigarettes a minute, using air pressure to shoot the equivalent of about 3/100 of an ounce of tobacco per cigarette into an endless tube of paper that’s moving through its rollers at a rate of more than 22 mph.

That’s 25 percent more cigarettes per minute than the old machines, which Philip Morris still uses in Bay 3 of the plant, for the smaller runs of its less popular brands.

One worker minds two of the high-speed machines in Bay 1. Each machine has its own operator in Bay 3.

One reason for having one worker overseeing one machine in Bay 3 is that the paper and unfolded packaging materials must be loaded onto the machines by hand, and often enough at the cost of sore backs and pinched fingers.

In Bay 1, ingredients come on larger pallet-loads that are fed into machines automatically by those robot arms in their Plexiglas-walled boxes.

Another key difference: There is one shipping-case machine for each six of Bay 3′s cigarette-makers. In Bay 1, there is one case machine for each pair of cigarette-makers.

In Bay 3, Robert Warren, manager of cigarette manufacturing, and his crew constantly are juggling to run the 10 different varieties the bay’s 18 machines can handle.

In Bay 1, that headache’s gone.

Altria employed the equivalent of 4,613 full-time workers in the Richmond area as of Jan. 1. The company won’t say how many work at the South Richmond plant — it keeps data about its production closely guarded so competitors don’t get clues about its operation.

. . .

Even Bay 3, though, benefits from other investments.

Hand-held scanners, tracking numbers and tiny quarter-inch-square gray-and-white markings on packaging material signal automated loaders in the adjoining warehouse to pull exactly what papers, foils, films and packing flats each machine in the plant needs, when operators are about to run low.

The old Bay 3 machines have the latest computer monitors: Sensors test the cigarettes shooting out of the machine to make sure each is within tight limits for weight and how tightly the tobacco leaf inside is packed.

There are brand-new testing machines in the filter-making room, too.

Instead of the old days when operators grabbed a handful of new filters and used calipers and a scale to see if they met standards, the new shoulder-high metal boxes can pull filters after they’re made.

The machines measure weight and circumference and even blow through air to check what cigarette makers call “resistance to draw,” which means how hard a smoker must drag to get a puff.

. . .

A big part of Philip Morris USA’s investment in the plant is information technology.

The cigarette-making machines, the pneumatic feed-lines from the tobacco-storage silos in the plant’s basement, and its warehouse and the other cigarette-making supplies all talk to each other all of the time — thanks to technology.

Battered, pistol-shaped hand-held scanners are used all over — most workers are assigned one, and most have specially installed rubber guards at the corners, too.

“They really get a workout,” said Schardt, picking up a particularly well-used scanner.

But then, most days feel like a sprint at the plant.

“From the time the tobacco comes up from downstairs, to pallets of cases being loaded on the trucks, you’re talking maybe an hour,” Schardt said.

By David Ress and John Reid Blackwell, TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITERS

Reynolds American Inc. and a group representing migrant farmworkers butted heads yesterday — as expected — over who’s ultimately responsible for laborers’ work and living conditions.

The clash took place yesterday at Reynolds’ annual shareholder meeting. Groups wanting to protest Reynolds’ policies typically buy its shares to be able to speak at the meeting.

From the tone of the nearly two-hour meeting, it’s clear that neither group trusts the other’s agenda and veracity.

The Farm Labor Organizing Committee believes that it has to be more vocal and demanding to persuade Reynolds to use its clout to pressure its suppliers to improve conditions for the state’s 30,000 tobacco farmworkers.

Members inserted the issue every chance they got, particularly during the comment periods for the six shareholder proposals, which included the topics of “communicating truth” and “human rights protocols.” The four shareholder-protest proposals were defeated.

The group also held a protest rally outside One Park Vista that drew about 110 participants, two of whom carried a sign reading “Reynolds scum. Your time has come.”

Reynolds, meanwhile, has decades of experience in handling protests, which has led to regimented shareholder meetings and timed-to-the-second comment periods.

Susan Ivey, the chairwoman and chief executive of Reynolds, said repeatedly that it is not the company’s role to negotiate on behalf of nonReynolds workers. In February, the company’s board of directors announced a “Statement on Human Rights” — on its website — for how it and its operating companies conduct their businesses.

“It is important to note that there is an extensive foundation of U.S. laws and regulations that support human rights,” Ivey said. “We do not believe it is appropriate for our operating companies to assume the regulatory and enforcement role of the federal, state and local governments.”

Dolores Quesenberry, a spokeswoman with the N.C. Labor Department, said “while there are some bad actors out there, we find that most farmers in North Carolina adhere to the standards. We encourage workers to report specific problems to the bureau.

“As for Reynolds Tobacco, in our experience they have been very proactive when it comes to safety and health training.”

Several protesters and advocates labeled Reynolds’ human-rights commitment as hollow.

The Rev. Laura Spangler of Lloyd Presbyterian Church challenged Reynolds to take its recent pledge for more transparency about its tobacco products and extend it to its global supply chain.

“Why not tell all the truth as to where forced child labor is being used by Reynolds tobacco suppliers?” Spangler asked. Other advocates said that Reynolds should be more open about who are its North Carolina suppliers so that they can be reviewed for work and living conditions.

Ivey said that Reynolds is addressing the child-labor issues in what she called “Reynolds’ sphere of influence.”

David Howard, a Reynolds spokesman, said that the company considers its supplier list as proprietary. Quesenberry said that the department does not collect information on which tobacco farmers have business relationships with a particular company.

Judy Lambeth, the general counsel of Reynolds, said that the issues concerning migrant-farm labor are much larger than just what happens on tobacco farms.

“FLOC is specifically targeting Reynolds as both the cause and cure for farmworker problems,” Lambeth said. “But you know what? Reynolds is the wrong target.

“The correct target is establishment of an effective guest-worker program through comprehensive immigration reform.”

Lambeth said that Reynolds declines to enter into a multiparty agreement with the group and its suppliers because Reynolds would be asked to pay additional money “purportedly for the benefit of the workers.”

“But what we have learned from others’ experience in these multiparty agreements is that there is no guarantee that any additional money would reach or benefit workers. The main beneficiary of FLOC’s multiparty agreements appears to be FLOC.”

Crystallizing the chasm in communication was when the shareholder protesters, led by the Rev. Carl­ton Eversley, walked out of the meeting singing “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around,” a Civil Rights-era spiritual.

Eversley serves as the president of the Ministers Conference of Winston-Salem and Vicinity.

The display led Ivey to call the meeting to an end before the shareholder votes were announced.

Baldemar Velasquez, the president of the group, said he believes the meeting was productive. He said he regretted the timing of the song and walkout.

“I would say we had a modest breakthrough,” Velasquez said. “They acknowledged we have a guest-worker problem, which basically acknowledges we have an undocumented-worker problem.

“We believe it is Reynolds’ role, and under its sphere of influence, to require its suppliers to treat the farmworkers with dignity and proper work and living conditions.”

Velasquez said that his group is encouraged by recent societal, regulatory and legislative changes that have affected the tobacco industry.

“We realize that those changes didn’t happen overnight, but by a constant chipping away at the issues,” he said. “We plan to continue to chip away so our goal will become the next real change.”

In other business, the board declared a quarterly cash dividend of 90 cents a share.

The dividend is payable July 1 to shareholders registered June 10.

Shareholders rejected a proposal requiring annual elections of board members. Of the 92.8 million shares voted by beneficial shareholders — largely institutional investors — 79.4 percent voted for the elimination of classified board proposal. That represented a decrease of 13.9 million votes for the proposal and increase of almost 9 million votes against from last year’s vote.

Of the 123.2 million shares voted by registered shareholders — such as British American Tobacco — less than 1 percent was in favor of the proposal.

By Richard Craver, Journal Reporter

A new finding associates prenatal smoking with psychiatric problems and increased need for psychotropic medications in childhood and young adulthood.

Pediatricians have known that maternal smoking during pregnancy can have long-term effects on the physical health of the child, including increased risk for respiratory disease, ear infections and asthma.

In the study, Finnish researchers found that adolescents who had been exposed to prenatal smoking were at increased risk for use of all psychiatric drugs, especially those used to treat depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and addiction, compared to nonexposed youths.

“Recent studies show that maternal smoking during pregnancy may interfere with brain development of the growing fetus,” said Mikael Ekblad, lead author of the study and a pediatric researcher at Turku University Hospital in Finland.

“By avoiding smoking during pregnancy, all the later psychiatric problems caused by smoking exposure could be prevented. This includes attention deficit disorder.”

Ekblad and his colleagues collected information from the Finnish Medical Birth Register on maternal smoking, gestational age, birth weight and 5-minute Apgar scores for all children born in Finland from 1987 through 1989.

They also analyzed records on mothers’ psychiatric inpatient care from 1969-1989 and children’s use of psychiatric drugs.

Results showed that 12.3 percent of the young adults had used psychiatric drugs, and of these, 19.2 percent had been exposed to prenatal smoking.

The rate of psychotropic medication use was highest in young adults whose mothers smoked more than 10 cigarettes a day while pregnant (16.9 percent), followed by youths whose mothers smoked fewer than 10 cigarettes a day (14.7 percent) and unexposed youths (11.7 percent).

The risk for medication use was similar in males and females, and remained after adjusting for risk factors at birth, such as Apgar scores and birthweight, and the mother’s previous inpatient care for mental disorders.

Smoking exposure increased the risk for use of all psychotropic drugs, especially stimulants used to treat ADHD (unexposed: 0.2 percent; less than 10 cigarettes/day: 0.4 percent; and more than 10 cigarettes/day: 0.6 percent) and drugs for addiction.

An increased risk for use of drugs to treat depression also was seen (unexposed: 6 percent; less than 10 cigarettes/day: 8.6 percent; and more than 10 cigarettes/day: 10.3 percent).

“Smoking during pregnancy is still quite common even though the knowledge of its harmful effects has risen in recent years,” Ekblad concluded.

“Recent studies have shown that smoking during pregnancy has negative long-term effects on the health of the child. Therefore, women should avoid smoking during their pregnancy.”

By Rick Nauert, Psychcentral

“The more cigarettes that mothers smoked during pregnancy, the more sleep problems the children had,” Dr. Kristen Stone of Women and Infants Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, one of the study’s authors, told Reuters Health.

What’s more, while most of the women who smoked during pregnancy used at least one other drug, Stone and her team found that nicotine was the only substance associated with sleep problems.

Stone and colleagues from centers in Miami, Detroit, and Memphis are following nearly 1,400 children born in 1993, 1994 or 1995 to investigate the long-term effects of exposure to substances during pregnancy.

The current study included children for whom data was available up to age 12. Among the 808 study participants, 374 had been exposed to cocaine or opiates such as heroin before birth, while 434 had not.

Children’s mothers or other caregivers reported on whether a child had difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep during three periods: one month to four years of age; five to eight years, and nine to 12 years. Being exposed to cocaine, opiates, marijuana, or alcohol in the womb had no effect on a child’s risk of having sleep problems, but nicotine did, and problems were seen at each of the three time points.

The researchers do not report what percentage of children had sleeping problems, but used a common measure of such problems that assigns points for items such as talking in one’s sleep, sleepwalking, and having trouble falling asleep.

The link remained even after the researchers took into account factors such as socioeconomic status, whether or not a child had been abused, and whether the mother or caregiver smoked after the child was born.

The findings shouldn’t be seen as showing that prenatal use of alcohol and drugs aside from cigarettes isn’t as harmful to a child’s sleep as smoking in pregnancy, Stone noted. Cigarettes are different from other substances, she explained, in that a person who smokes will typically do so much more frequently than a drug abuser uses cocaine or opiates.

Further, she said, many of the mothers in the study were using multiple substances while they were pregnancy. “When those substances are inside of us at the same time, they basically become a whole new substance because of their interactions with each other,” she added. All of this makes it difficult to tease out the effects of nicotine and other drugs, according to the researcher.

In an editorial accompanying the study, Drs. Gideon Koren and Irena Nulman of the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, note that smoking mothers are different from nonsmoking mothers in many ways, and that Stone and her team were unable to account for all of them.

Until it’s possible to identify all these factors and use statistical techniques to adjust for them, they add, it would be “premature” to say that cigarette smoke exposure in the womb caused a child’s sleep problems.

When a child does have sleep problems, Stone said, “early and careful attention” to these issues can go along way toward helping that child sleep better.

“Even an emphasis on basic behavioral sleep education could serve those children well,” she added. “Doing that would then likely improve the daytime experience for those children as well.”

Reuters

Missouri may soon become the state with the lowest tax in the country….at least on cigarettes. It won’t because of what Missouri has done, but rather, what it hasn’t.
If South Carolina passes its tax hikes on cigarette packs, Missouri, by default, will become the state with the lowest taxes on cigarettes in the country at 17 cents per pack. That’s $1.26 less than the state average.

The rank comes at a time when high numbers of Missourians are lighting up.

Retired Major General Jon Hall has tried to quit smoking twice, both unsuccessfully.

“I started smoking when I was about 12…and the only reason I did that is that my older brother told me that if I was going to hang around them, I had to smoke.”

His older brother died of lung cancer.

“He was younger than I am, and I’m still going fairly strong.”

Hall is part of a statistic ranking Missouri fourth in the nation for percentage of adult smokers. With one in four Missourians lighting-up.

House Democrat Jamilah Nasheed is sponsoring a bill to raise taxes on cigarettes to 33 cents. She wants the $90 million for the budget.

The bill’s hearing is not yet on the calendar, but to get the smoking rate down, cardiologist Dr. Arun Kumar has another idea.

“The effect of smoking on our overall health care costs is immense, and if we focus our energies on preventing people from smoking in the beginning we’ll be far better off,” Kumar said.

The Center for Disease Control says Missouri now only uses 1.7 percent of the recommended amount of money to curb smoking.

As for Hall, he’s not swayed.

“I’m taking two drugs right now that are suppose to make me stop and I’m taking them right along with cigarettes.”

Republican state representative Ed Emery said it is not the government’s job to manipulate people’s behavior with taxes. However, he did say he would consider a bill that cuts taxes for those who do not smoke, while hiking taxes for those who do.

By Jena Pike, Komu

Smokers banished 25 feet from building entries and walkways could soon rejoin the masses by simply eating a mint instead. Dissolvable tobacco products, such as Ariva and Stonewall, have been on the market since 2001, but a new product line from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company is causing quite a hubbub with health officials.

Camel Orbs, Camel Sticks and Camel Strips are made of highly refined tobacco that slowly dissolves in the mouth.

They come in mint or cinnamon flavors, cost about $4 a pack and are spicing up the smokeless tobacco industry as a spitless, non-obtrusive form of tobacco that health officials say is being marketed to kids.

The products began test marketing in Portland, Ore.; Columbus, Ohio; and Indianapolis in 2009.

David Howard, director of communications for Reynolds American Services, said in an e-mail that the company would “not speculate on any plans it may or may not be considering, and there is no timetable for nationwide distribution of the Camel tobacco products.”

While the mints may offer an under-the-radar nicotine fix for smokers, researchers from the American Academy of Pediatrics warn of the product’s potential to poison children and create addiction among youths.

A study published by the academy in its journal, Pediatrics, on April 19, examined child poisonings from tobacco ingestion and assessed the potential toxicity of smokeless tobacco products. The results found that smokeless tobacco products are the second-most commonly ingested by children, and concluded that dissolvable and novelty nicotine products require further study by public health authorities to determine regulations before national release.

The study describes the Orbs are a serious concern because of their “discreet form, candy-like appearance and added flavoring that may be attractive to young children.”

The colorful packing resembles that of Tic Tacs and claims to be “child-resistant.”

In a press release responding to the article published in Pediatrics, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company highlighted that 91 percent of accidental tobacco ingestions in the study involved cigarettes, butts, cigars and traditional moist snuff, but not its dissolvable tobacco products. The company said the study was “remarkably selective in its focus” and failed to include all potential household sources of nicotine products.

The bottom line, they said, is that tobacco products, along with many other goods, need to be kept out of the hands of children.

Although the products pose a risk to children, Swenson said people addicted to nicotine might find the product beneficial in situations where smoking is not permissible or is socially uncouth.

While having a smoke by the fountain in Red Square, Western seniors Eric Skaar and Jacob Eskenazi said they would use the Orbs as an alternative to smoking if it were cost-effective.

Eskenazi said the mints would come in handy in class or during finals week when he sometimes smokes as much as a pack a day to relieve stress. He said the mints would be much better for his lungs.

As for social situations, Skaar said the mints would be a lot easier for people to accept rather than the smelly hands and bad breath that are the result of smoking cigarettes.

“It’s not something you would want to do all the time,” Skaar said. “A real smoker would still like a cigarette sometimes and not some flavored bullshit.”

Jeanne Freeman, a health education professor at Western, said she is concerned by the amount of nicotine present in the product.

A study by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that Camel Orbs have an average of 0.83 mg of nicotine. Product information from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company said Camel Sticks contain 3.1 mg of nicotine per stick,

and Camel Strips contain 0.6 mg per strip.
According to the study, 1 mg of nicotine is enough to produce symptoms such as nausea and vomiting in a small child.
The study estimated the minimal lethal dose for a child is 1 mg of nicotine per kilogram of body weight, which means three to four Camel Orbs could kill a 7-pound baby.

Depending on the brand, a typical cigarette contains anywhere between 0.8 and 1.8 mg of nicotine.
“Since nicotine is the leading addictive agent in tobacco products,” Freeman said, “my question is whether these dissolvable products may increase nicotine addiction among users, thereby creating health issues from nicotine poisoning.”

Freeman said it is possible that adults might think one mint could not give them what they are seeking from a cigarette, and would then decide to consume three, four or five or more at the same time.
For those looking to alternative tobacco or nicotine products to quit smoking, Emily Gibson, director of the Student Health Center, said the regulated pharmaceutical nicotine replacement medications in gum, patch and nasal form are the best for a nicotine substitute.

“Stick with the products that have actually been tested and are monitored by governmental agencies,” Gibson said.
Until the smoke clears on the issue, the future of the dissolvable tobacco mints remains uncertain.

By Mitch Olsen, Westernfrontonline

Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki says it is now clear the Nevada Legislature should have “securitized” the money the state was scheduled to receive as part of a settlement with the tobacco companies a decade ago to protect it from the current reality of lower than expected annual payments.

Securitization essentially would have sold off the future value of the annual tobacco payments projected to come to the state over 25 years to investors, projected at $1.2 billion, for a lesser upfront value, allowing the state to receive and invest about $500 million.

Krolicki, asked this week about the failed securitization effort in response to the current financial problems facing the Millennium Scholarship program, said the evidence is in.

“It is no longer opinion, it is reality,” he said. “After the passage of a decade, we now know the answer to the question. We should have securitized.”

Tobacco settlement revenue predictions a decade ago suggested the state would get nearly $52 million this year, but the state actually received just under $42 million, Krolicki said.

“We’re getting very roughly a 20 percent haircut from where we thought we would be 10 years ago,” he said.

Krolicki, who served as Nevada State Treasurer for two terms when the master settlement agreement with the tobacco companies was signed by Nevada and 45 other states, proposed the securitization concept to the 2001 Legislature. Using the process would have protected the money from the vagaries of the tobacco industry and the annual payment estimates that have now proven to be overly optimistic, he said.

The securitization effort, and another attempt in 2003, both failed to win legislative support.

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, who voiced concerns about the proposal in 2001, disagrees with Krolicki’s assessment that securitization was the right move.

“Securitization would have in my opinion caused us to run out of money a long time ago,” she said. “With securitization you get pennies on the dollar. It would have probably been used up the first time we were hit with a financial crisis.”

Securitization was essentially a bet that the tobacco companies were going to go out of business and so would have stopped sending annual payments to Nevada under the master settlement agreement negotiated more than a decade ago, Buckley said.

“That didn’t happen,” she said. “People are still smoking.”

Krolicki maintains that using securitization would have protected Nevada from the reality that payments from the tobacco companies are declining because people are smoking less.

From Fiscal Year 2001 through 2010, the state has received $416.1 million in tobacco settlement funds, according to information provided by the Treasurer’s Office. Projections used by Krolicki in 2001 showed the state anticipated receiving $469.1 million or nearly 13 percent more during the same period.

In part because of declining cigarette consumption, Nevada’s payment this year was about $5 million less than what the Treasurer’s Office had projected and has affected the solvency of the scholarship program.

Krolicki’s securitization proposal, contained in Senate Bill 488, passed the Senate by an 18-3 vote in 2001 but never emerged from the Assembly Judiciary Committee for a vote. Minutes from the committee hearings show there were concerns about the idea of giving up $1.2 billion worth of tobacco payments over 25 years in exchange for an estimated $500 million.

“I wish we would have done it,” Krolicki said. “If we had locked in the amount of money we thought we would receive, the programs funded with the money would still be very viable.”

The market has fluctuated since 2001 but the money today would be largely intact, he said.

A number of states went the securitization route with their tobacco funds a decade ago, including North Dakota, Alaska, Alabama and South Carolina. The value of the settlement money at the time had a higher credit rating than Nevada-backed bonds, he said. Today their status is junk and the securitization opportunity has been lost, Krolicki said.

Buckley said states that used securitization for their tobacco funds have long since spent the money.

Nevada is still receiving its annual payments, she said.

The issue isn’t securitization but the fact that the College Savings Plans board did not transfer $2 million to the scholarship in March as lawmakers anticipated, Buckley said. In addition, the scholarship is a victim of its own success with many students taking advantage of it, particularly during this economic downturn, she said.

The scholarship is provided to Nevada high school graduates who must earn a minimum GPA and who go on to college in state.

The Legislature in 1999 agreed to use 40 percent of the settlement funds for the scholarship program proposed by then-Gov. Kenny Guinn. The remainder goes to public health related programs except for a small amount that goes to the Nevada Attorney General’s office.

Buckley also noted that some Assembly Republicans, along with Krolicki, proposed securitizing the Unclaimed Property Fund managed by the state Treasurer’s Office as a way to help balance the budget in the special session held earlier this year.

Lawmakers chose not to move forward on the proposal after current Treasurer Kate Marshall said such a move could hurt the state’s credit rating.

Buckley, who will not be returning to the Legislature next year, said she believes the scholarship program should and will be continued. A temporary solution is needed to fund it through 2011, giving the Legislature time next year to consider ways to fit the program within the available funds, she said.

Giving the scholarship only to those in financial need is one likely topic for that discussion, Buckley said.

Krolicki, who is running for re-election as lieutenant governor, said he supports continuation of the scholarship. As chairman of the Commission on Economic Development in his current position, the scholarship is clearly helping generate the educated workforce Nevada needs for its economic development efforts, he said.

But he did criticize Marshall’s office for failing to properly project tobacco revenues for lawmakers so they could make informed judgments to maintain the program.

Lawmakers would not have eliminated transfers to the scholarship from the Unclaimed Property Fund, or transferred money out of the scholarship fund itself, if there was any suggestion doing so would have rendered it insolvent, Krolicki said.

Lawmakers approved taking $32.8 million in total from the scholarship at a special session earlier this year to help solve a more than $800 million shortfall in the state’s general fund budget.

“People need to take responsibility for their actions and projections,” Krolicki said.

Marshall said today the missed tobacco payment projection was a first for her office and has come at a time of unprecedented economic crisis.

Marshall reported to lawmakers this week the scholarship needs about $4.2 million to say solvent through next fiscal year. She has presented three alternatives to keep the program going that lawmakers will consider in June.

“During our global financial crisis there have been a lot of firsts,” she said. “Part of my job in a financial crisis is to find financial solutions I can present to the Legislature so they have options. I have provided leadership and I am proud of my record.”

In a letter to lawmakers sent Monday, the Treasurer’s Office said the record shows Marshall expressed concerns to lawmakers that the decision to use $32.8 million destined for the program to balance the general fund budget could put it at risk. Information was posted on the office website to keep parents and students informed as well.

Marshall also said the annual tobacco payment came in April, several weeks after the Legislature had made its decisions regarding the scholarship funding.

In a fact sheet posted on the treasurer’s website, the reason for the lower than expected tobacco payment received in April is because national tobacco sales were down about 9 percent.

“However, there is no present information that would clearly indicate that the lower-than-projected amount was an anomaly or a pattern for future payment amounts,” the fact sheet says.

By Sean Whaley, Nevadanewsbureau