GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The World Trade Organization (WTO) will issue a ruling on a dispute between Indonesia and the United States over a U.S. ban on clove-flavored cigarettes, Reuters reports. Indonesia alleges the U.S. is abusing health regulations as it bans clove cigarettes while allowing U.S. tobacco manufacturers to continue marketing menthol cigarettes.

In response, the U.S. maintains flavored tobacco attracts young people to smoking, and that the ban applies uniformly to clove cigarettes from all countries.

The WTO’s dispute settlement body agreed to establish a panel to rule on the dispute.

Indonesia said its clove cigarettes have been shut out of the U.S. since September 2009, and that it had been trying to resolve the issue. It said it could not wait for the U.S. to complete its review of menthol cigarettes, which is not expected until March 2011.

The U.S. imported $15.2 million of clove cigarettes, nearly all from Indonesia, in 2008, accounting for less than 0.1 percent of cigarette consumption at the time. Indonesia claims that menthol cigarettes now make up 28 percent of U.S. cigarette consumption.

Source: www.nacsonline.com.

An artfully disguised racket to promote smoking among young children with the use of cigarette-shaped candy has been detected in many parts of the country. This candy is now freely available for sale at various outlets in the main towns including Colombo.The candy which wraped with a cigarette shaped cover is meant to be sucked by placing it between the lips – similar to how a cigarette is smoked.

Professor Carlo Fonseka, the chairman of the National Commission to curb the use of Tobacco and Alcohol and Drugs said he was unaware of this latest racket.

“However, if anyone wishes to make a complaint regarding such material they can inform the District Tobacco Control Centres (DTCC) and necessary action will be taken against the sellers,” he assured.

The DTCC are regional units of NATA and comprises officials from the Excise Department and other government bodies.

Professor Fonseka said the public could also inform NATA regarding such matters by dialing the toll-free hotline No: 1948.

The promotion of cigarettes and liquor through advertising and other means is banned.

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

More information is being demanded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration about tobacco related products that come in a variety of flavors that children may mistake for candy.

According to Reuters, the products, made by Reynolds American Inc’s R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co and by Star Scientific Inc, contain powdered “smokeless” tobacco and are brightly colored, with flavors such as coffee and mint.

Products such as Snus, a no-spit tobacco pouch meant to be placed under the upper lip, are aimed at adults who must deal with a growing number of smoking bans in public places as well as those looking to stop smoking.

Another product called Orbs is a dissolvable breath-mint sized tobacco that can easily be mistaken for a Tic-Tac.

Health educator Isa Kaluhikaua told Reuters that if a child ingested three Orbs, they would get ill, and 10 could result in serious illness.

She said even though most of these products can be purchased off the shelf, the FDA has not yet approved them.

A letter from the FDA to Reynolds and Star Scientific said it was concerned that the products could draw in children and teenagers. Use of the products could lead to nicotine addiction and could even cause health problems from the ingestion of too much nicotine, the FDA said.

FDA is “concerned that children and adolescents may find dissolvable tobacco products particularly appealing, given the brightly colored packaging, candy-like appearance and easily concealable size of many of these products,” Lawrence Deyton, head of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, wrote February 1.

The company was not surprised by the letter and said they would cooperate fully.

“We’re happy to share information with them,” Sara Troy Machir rold Reuters.

While the FDA, in its letters to the two companies, acknowledged the products are marketed to adults, it nonetheless asked both manufacturers for extensive information on research and marketing practices for the products.

R.J. Reynolds markets three types of similar products under its Camel brand that deliver dissolvable nicotine in tablet, mouth strip and small matchstick-like forms.

WASHINGTON – U.S. health officials are seeking more information about the possible attraction and addiction of flavored, dissolvable tobacco products that regulators worry look too much like candy and can entice children.

The products, made by Reynolds American Inc’s R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co and by Star Scientific Inc, contain powdered “smokeless” tobacco and are brightly colored, with flavors such as coffee and mint.

Companies have argued that the products, which include dissolvable tablets, are aimed at adults who must deal with a growing number of smoking bans in public places as well as those looking to stop smoking.

But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in letters to Reynolds and Star Scientific released late Tuesday, said it was concerned that the products could draw in children and teenagers. Use of the products could lead to nicotine addiction and could even cause health problems from the ingestion of too much nicotine, the FDA said.

While laws vary among the U.S. states, most limit tobacco purchase to those 18 and older.

FDA is “concerned that children and adolescents may find dissolvable tobacco products particularly appealing, given the brightly colored packaging, candy-like appearance and easily concealable size of many of these products,” Lawrence Deyton, head of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, wrote February 1.

The letters come as the FDA prepares to hold its first public meeting on tobacco issues later this year. Agency officials have quickly moved to flex their new oversight of tobacco products after a new law granted them the power last year.

Any move by the FDA to further regulate or even remove dissolvable tobacco products from the U.S. market would be a huge blow to Star Scientific. The one-time cigarette manufacturer has shifted its focus to making products it says expose consumers to lower levels of toxins.

Sara Troy Machir, a spokeswoman for Star Scientific, said the company was not surprised by the letter and would cooperate fully.

“We’re happy to share information with them,” Machir said, adding that Star’s smokeless products — Ariva and Stonewall — have been on the market for 10 years.

Representatives for R.J. Reynolds did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

R.J. Reynolds markets three types of similar products under its Camel brand that deliver dissolvable nicotine in tablet, mouth strip and small matchstick-like forms.

The two companies have been embroiled in a patent dispute over some of the technology behind the dissolvable products.

While FDA in its letters to the two companies acknowledged the products are marketed to adults, it nonetheless asked both manufacturers for extensive information on research and marketing practices for the products.

Star Scientific and Reynolds have two months to respond.

By Susan Heavey, Reuters

Thu Feb 4, 2010

The Missouri Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control announces free training opportunities for managers and retail clerks who sell cigarettes and tobacco products to the public in retail stores, according to a news release.

The training will cover a wide range of topics, including: a detailed explanation of Missouri laws regarding youth access to tobacco, tips to help prevent selling to minors and techniques for spotting fraudulent IDs.

The free training is designed to assist owners, managers and front-line staff with proper service techniques and takes about 90 minutes. Three sessions will be offered to accommodate as many people as possible.

The 90-minute training sessions will begin at 9 a.m., noon and 2:30 p.m. Feb. 17 at the Cowan Civic Center in Lebanon. Space is limited, and registration is required.

For more details, contact Vanessa Mure at 573-751-5448 or vanessa.mure@dps.mo.gov.

AL AIN // There are a number of things Isam Tareef loves about living in the UAE, and spending his evenings enjoying a lemon-and-mint-flavoured shisha after a long day at work tops the list.

“It’s a newfound obsession for me. I just love it,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and opening his palms in a sign of resignation. “I’ve become a slave to the tobacco pipe.”

In New York, he said, he was always going out with colleagues after work. “Now, that’s been replaced with a relaxing evening of shisha.”

Ever since arriving in Abu Dhabi in 2008, Mr Tareef, 37, a Lebanese engineer with a petroleum company, has indulged in a tobacco water pipe daily – sometimes two or three times a day. Yesterday’s announcement of a federal smoking ban may make his habit a little more difficult to pursue, however.

“My shishas can’t be as bad for me as cigarettes, right?” he said. “I mean sure, it might be a bit unhealthy, but definitely not as bad as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.” Mr Tareef is far off the mark.

Dr Rima Nakkash, research professor in the health management and policy department of the faculty of health sciences in the American University of Beirut, said the risks from shisha smoking were severe and long-term effects still unclear.

“In a typical one-hour session, water-pipe smoke delivers as much tar as an entire pack of cigarettes,” she said yesterday on the third day of the Global Health and the UAE: Asia-Middle East Connections conference at UAE University in Al Ain.

Dr Nakkash, who heads a tobacco control research group in Beirut, said smoking shisha was not a safe alternative to smoking cigarettes. “This is becoming a global health issue,” she said.

“People travel and cross borders, and any addictive behaviour they learn, they spread it wherever they go, so now you find what is known as hookah bars near universities in the UK, in the US, in Canada, all over.”

Research by the World Health Organisation’s study group on tobacco product regulation conducted in 2005 found that one session of smoking a water pipe could be as dangerous as smoking up to 100 cigarettes. This finding is disturbing, she said, because shisha is seen as fashionable and more acceptable than cigarettes among women.

In her research among smokers in four Middle Eastern countries, Dr Nakkash found a propensity for shisha smoking among women and youths in particular.

“Youths start smoking water pipes because it is socially acceptable and much more permissible than cigarettes, and for women, it is a fashionable trend,” she said.

Dr Nakkash said the fear was that people were starting to smoke too early in life. “We know that shisha smoke contains carcinogens and toxicants like cigarettes, but there are no extensive studies on the long-term effects yet,” she said, “though we predict the same type of health problems that are associated with cigarette smoking.”

Additionally, the nicotine in shisha is not filtered through the water, as smokers mistakenly believe, making the habit addictive.

Shisha smoking is socially acceptable, affordable and accessible, and people just do not know the truth about it, Dr Nakkash said, adding that enforcing bans on smoking indoors and in closed spaces and ensuring that society complied by these bans was the first step to tackling the problem.

Indeed, the law signed by Sheikh Khalifa yesterday places major restrictions on not just indoor spaces but cafes in or near residential areas. Those younger than 18 also are prohibited from partaking.

“But you have to be aware that you can never ban any kind of tobacco use, whether cigarettes or shisha,” she said. “What you can do is regulate it in a way to protect the non-smoker and make sure that smokers are consciously aware of what they are getting into.”

The dangers of shisha smoking, the conference participants agreed, needed to be addressed urgently.

“We know it’s spreading,” Dr Nakkash said. “We don’t have to wait to see its long-term effects on health before speaking up about it, and loudly.”

NEW YORK // Once home to smoke-filled shisha dens and cheap tobacco, the Middle East is increasingly becoming a nicotine-free zone with ever-fewer places to light up.

UN health chiefs say tough new anti-tobacco rules are being rolled out from Djibouti to Jordan, changing the stereotypical image of the Arab world as a smokers’ paradise where people can feed their addiction in offices, restaurants, buses – and even hospitals.

According to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) latest report on anti-smoking policies, the Emirates is a regional trailblazer, where total smoking bans in enclosed public places covers almost one third of the population, slightly more even than in the United States.

“Change is happening, the political commitment is increasing and smoking is becoming less socially acceptable, although it is not happening fast enough,” said Fatimah El Awa, an adviser to WHO’s regional anti-tobacco project.

“Now, we are seeing pictorial health warnings on cigarettes that cover 50 per cent of the packets – in places like Djibouti, Egypt, Iran and Jordan. This would have been impossible to imagine five years ago.”

This year’s annual WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic paints a mixed image of smoking across a 22-nation bloc called the Eastern Mediterranean region, where Gulf Arabs are more restrained smokers than their counterparts across the Arab world.

The Bahrainis (where 6 per cent of adults smoke) and Saudis (7 per cent) light up considerably less than their brethren in Egypt (14 per cent) or the region’s puffing champions in Tunisia (32 per cent) and Jordan (36 per cent), in statistics that WHO asserts may not be wholly accurate.

As well as the addition of health warnings on cigarette packets in some countries, the experts laud Afghanistan, Djibouti, Iraq and Jordan for introducing or extending bans on smoking in public places, including restaurants, universities and official buildings.

The chain-smoking Jordanians have redoubled efforts this past year, with laws banning the sale of single cigarettes, introducing anti-smoking officers and ridding the capital, Amman, of billboards, vending machines and tobacco sponsorship advertising.

Sweeping curbs announced in August by the government of Iraq, where 11 per cent of adults smoke, proved controversial, with many questioning whether bans on smoking in public buildings or selling cigarettes to those under 18 should rank so high on the troubled nation’s agenda.

Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, who has also been concerned at the ill effects of tobacco, in October issued a decree that bans smoking in many indoor public places and US$45 (Dh165.2) fines against offenders – even extending the ruling to cover the beloved shisha pipes, known locally as argileh.

While the UAE’s patchwork of anti-smoking rules, absence of a federal law and occasional policy u-turns has attracted criticism within the country, the view from abroad is a success story in which 29 per cent of the population has been freed from the perils of second-hand smoke in public places.

This puts it towards the top of the league table ahead of the US (28 per cent) and below Australia (96 per cent), well ahead of a global average in which 5.4 per cent of the world’s population was covered by comprehensive smoke-free laws last year.

The 138-page report likewise lauds the Emirates, where 8 per cent of adults smoke, for becoming one of only 17 countries globally to offer comprehensive help to quit smoking last year, with nicotine patches and national telephone lines to help smokers kick the habit.

This region’s anti-smoking movement has witnessed its share of novelty initiatives, such as Bahraini officials handing out flyers to some 100,000 motorists on the King Fahd Causeway, which connects the island to Saudi Arabia, detailing the country’s new tobacco-free zones.

The Saudis got even more imaginative in June, when the charity Purity announced a competition in which would-be grooms quit smoking in a bid to win an all-expenses paid wedding – a cumbersome expense in the desert kingdom.

Religion has even entered the equation, with Dr El Awa describing a total ban on tobacco in Mecca and Medina since 2002, enforced throughout the Haj pilgrimages, as creating “the only two cities in the world that I would claim are completely tobacco-free”.

Opinions are divided as to whether the holy month of Ramadan, in which practising Muslims abstain from putting food, drink or tobacco past their lips during daylight hours, is a help or a hindrance to creating a smoking-free Middle East.

While Dr El Awa notes that “in Ramadan, every smoker thinks about quitting”, her colleague, Dr Hani Algouhmani, the regional co-ordinator for the Framework Convention Alliance against tobacco, warns the holy month also has its pitfalls.

“When Muslims break the fast, they also tend to smoke shisha, it has become a habit in some countries,” said Dr Algouhmani. “In the evening, they are sitting at home, in cafes or restaurants and smoking hubbly bubbly. They smoke a lot more than perhaps they would otherwise.”

The customary hookah pipes are seen as one of the biggest impediments to rolling out smoking bans, although Dr El Awa is in no doubt they are as dangerous as cigarettes, saying: “Smoking shisha in a room for one hour is the equivalent of smoking 100-200 cigarettes.”

Experts also cite the continued low-price of cigarettes as hampering efforts to rid the region of tobacco, as they try to convince officials to make capital cities from Tunis to Damascus and Beirut smoke-free zones over the next couple of years.

“In the coming 10 years, I would like to see a real reduction in prevalence,” said Dr El Awa. “We will focus our efforts in working with countries to strengthen legislation and enforcement, and make sure the tobacco industry is not interfering to stop the wheel that is turning on tobacco control.”

In September, the clove cigarette vanished from shelves across the country as a part of a new federal ban on cigarettes that taste like fruits, herbs, candy or other flavors deemed too appealing to children. The FDA’s new power to regulate tobacco led to the ban and will create some of the most monumental changes in how — and what — people smoke all over the country.

The band of clove smokers is small in South Florida. But as their cloves diminished, stick by stick, worries flared about how this new ban would affect the local culture in a place where partyers can still puff at nightclubs, in a state that has chosen not to levy taxes on tobacco.

“What Hollywood is to actors, Miami is to cigars,” said William Carroll, manager at Vilar Cigar Shop in South Miami. “We wonder if its cloves first, then what’s next?”

Vilar Cigar smells like roasted coffee and boasts more than 200 types of tobacco. Less than 1 percent of buyers wanted cloves, Carroll said, so it made little difference profit-wise. The shop easily gave them up but remains wary about the future.

Signed in June, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Act gave retailers, manufacturers, and distributors three months to get rid of their flavored cigarettes — or face warning letters, fines or prosecution.

Word spread quickly. Old customers went to Carroll and bought 10 packs at a time, knowing this might be the last time they ever made a purchase there. Soon, they will have even more company.

NO MORE `SLIMS’

Ever smoke a “slim” or light cigarette? In a year, cigarette packs will no longer be able to advertise as such — because health experts say those words give the false illusion that they are less deadly than a regular cigarette.

The FDA also has the power to reduce or restrict certain additives to tobacco products — including nicotine. Such reductions will make it easier to wean folks from their addictions, said Dr. Michael Fiore, director of the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention.

“My perspective as a physician and a clinician is that it’s going to improve health,” Fiore said of the new plan. “This was a significant and important step.”

YOUTH MARKET

Flavored-cigarette smokers were singled out first because they are disproportionately young. The FDA estimates that about 23 percent of 17-year-old smokers use them — but only 6 percent of adults.

Menthol was spared because it’s the stick-of-choice for many adults — and the change could have been too catastrophic for addicts, according to FDA documents. The feedback and response that the FDA receives from this niche ban could help shape the next batch of restrictions, according to spokeswoman Kathleen Quinn.

The FDA’s strategy is based on treating smoking, the country’s leading preventable disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The center estimates that smoking causes 440,000 deaths a year in the United States — one in five total deaths.

SOUTH FLORIDA

The state health department estimates that about 15 percent of Miami-Dade County residents smoke, a tad below the state and national average. And 10 percent of local high-school students have ‘fessed up that they illegally lit up.

Chipi, 20, admits to being a statistic, one of that 90 percent of smokers who starts as a teenager. She was a high-school sophomore the first time someone offered her a clove.

It immediately relaxed her. The smell was soothing. The flavor masked the bitter taste of tobacco. There was a nice crackle at the end.

The FDA posits that teens start with candy-like flavors before moving on. But Chipi never stopped. She began having one Djarum Black a day, which was more than enough because the taste is so strong. The vice cost her $8 for a pack.

“I wasn’t able to afford them until I started working,” she said.

`CLOVE CULTURE’

Along the way, Chipi met counter-culture hipsters, goths, and college professors who also shared her love.

“We created that sort of clove culture,” Chipi said. “Once a day or on the weekend when you go out, when you see someone smoking one and you smell that smell, you automatically have a conversation about where you buy yours and what flavors you like.

“Now that conversation has shifted to a sadder note.”

They talk about how they feel their community was targeted because it was exclusive. Or whether they want to risk buying the cigarettes over the Internet (Quinn of the FDA said the agency is not interested in prosecuting individuals). Or if they are willing to try new flavored “cigars,” which are currently excluded from the ban.

Said Chipi: “We’re all figuring out what to do.”

By ROBERT SAMUELS
rsamuels@MiamiHerald.com, 11.10.09

The first head-to-head comparison of different quit-smoking products finds that a nicotine patch combined with a nicotine lozenge had the most success.

More than other methods, including antidepressants, this combination best mimics the actual highs and lows of smoking to help smokers kick their habit, experts said.

“The study shows that, yes, one therapy came out on top, the patch and the lozenge [together],” said Dr. Jonathan H. Whiteson, co-director of the Joan and Joel Smilow Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention Center at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.

“The reasoning behind it is that the patch supplies a steady supply of nicotine replacement and the lozenges give a boost of nicotine which you can use when you have an extra craving. It gives people control,” said Whiteson, who was not involved in the research.

“If you combine these different types of nicotine replacement you’re going to get the best bang for your buck,” added Megan E. Piper, lead author of the new study and an assistant professor at the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “But also remember that in this study people got a lot of counseling. It was that combination that resulted in a 40 percent quit rate [at six months out].”

In fact, coupling the patch with the lozenge was the only intervention that performed better than a placebo, reported the study, which appears in the November issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The study adds insight to a field that’s long suffered from too little research. “As each medication comes out, it is tested against a placebo,” but not against other methods, Piper explained. “There just hasn’t been the funding or the availability of a program to do something like that.”

This research was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Medication was provided free by drug maker GlaxoSmithKline. Several of the study authors reported financial ties to different pharmaceutical companies.

For this study, 1,504 adults who had smoked at least half a pack a day for the past six months and wanted to quit were randomly assigned to a placebo or one of five different quit-smoking interventions: nicotine lozenge, nicotine patch, bupropion (Wellbutrin, an antidepressant), nicotine patch plus nicotine lozenge, and bupropion plus nicotine lozenge. All groups received six individual counseling sessions with a case manager.

The nicotine patch, which has been available for more than two decades, is currently the most widely used pharmacotherapy to help people quit smoking.

However, only the combination of the nicotine patch and the lozenge performed significantly better than placebo six months after the person smoked their last cigarette, the team found.

People taking the patch-lozenge combination were also more likely to have sworn off cigarettes after one week and were more likely to have attained one full day without smoking, the researchers said.

The 40 percent (at six months) success rate reported here will decline as time goes on, Whiteson noted. He added, however, that in the smoking cessation arena, “even the 30 percent range is very good.”

Another expert said the study raised some key concerns. “The question is, how many of them had to continue on the lozenge in order to stay off cigarettes? I always tell people not to do the lozenge alone because it mimics the very thing that smoking does, which gives you a spike. Then, when you reach a trough, you pick up a lozenge — or cigarette,” said Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “Once they stopped everything, could they do without the spikes and troughs [of the lozenge], which mimics physiologically everything the cigarette is doing? Smoking is a two-pronged problem. There’s nicotine dependence and a behavioral aspect to it.”

Dr. Elliot Wineburg, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, felt the study suffered from some limitations, namely lack of individual attention to individual smokers’ habits.

“The authors said that they gave the patients lozenges according to the company’s [instructions],” he said. But this doesn’t take into account how much people smoke or how strong their cigarettes are. “They don’t even look into the amount of nicotine a person takes.”

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay

Camel Orbs- a new product being test marketed by tobacco company R.J. Reynolds- could draw attention to the cause to ban menthol flavored tobacco products if early response gives any indication. The new product has already prompted critical response to the effect that it resembles candy, and therefore could appeal to children. The FDA has already banned cigarettes that were made with flavors seen as appealing to children such as clove, fruit and other candy flavors to help prevent cigarettes from appealing to children and make them less attractive to adults who didn’t like the taste of regular cigarettes.

Camel Orbs are mints that contain tobacco and nicotine and, according to the company, are intended for use by adults seeking an alternative to cigarettes. Despite information to the contrary many see the product as something that children could easily find appealing and want to try, an opinion that’s also held for Camel Sticks and Strips, two other products intended as alternatives to cigarettes created by the company. Orbs are being test marketed in the Columbus Ohio area and while they can’t be legally sold to anyone under the legal smoking age of 18 they’re still considered a potential hazard to children who could easily be drawn to try their parent’s or ask an older teen to buy the mints for them. The temptation to ingest more than one at a time (the mints are small and have a strong mint flavoring that could be seen as overpowering the nicotine in the product) could affect adults and children as well.

Tobacco products have faced a great deal of scrutiny in the last few years and recent laws have begun to affect tobacco companies enough to prompt lawsuits that attempt to subvert the FDA’s regulation of tobacco.

The “mints” in your child’s pocket might give much more than a sugar high, the Federal Drug Administration is warning.
They might provide a jolt of nicotine.
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. is test-marketing tobacco-infused mints in Columbus and two other markets. The company says the mints are for adults who want an alternative to cigarettes.

Critics warn that the so-called “dissolvable tobacco” products will appeal to youngsters.

“It’s in a colorful candy box and looks just like candy,” said school nurse Eva Garchar of Cincinnati, who saw the Camel Orbs during a lecture at a nurses convention last spring. “All the people in the audience were disheartened by that.”
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Test-marketing of the mints started in the spring in Columbus bars, gas stations and markets. Two other flavored tobacco products, Camel Sticks and Camel Strips, joined them in the past few months.

David P. Howard, R.J. Reynolds spokesman, said the company does not target children.

“Those accusations are completely unfounded,” he said. “It is a guiding principle of this company that youth should not use tobacco. These products are only for adult tobacco consumers.”

Deb Strouse, president of the Ohio Association of School Nurses, doesn’t buy it.

“It’s something that looks like a treat, and we find it reprehensible that people put tobacco into these kinds of products,” said Strouse, a nurse in the Columbus school district. “Even if they say they’re not advertising to children, we know the products are attractive to children.”

Like cigarettes, the orbs, strips and sticks can’t legally be sold to anyone younger than 18.

A federal law that took effect this week bans the sale of candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes, in part because of their attractiveness to children. But the ban doesn’t extend to the mints and other candy-flavored tobacco products.

The FDA began warning parents on its Web site this week that flavored tobacco products are “especially appealing to kids and can lead to a lifetime of tobacco addiction.”

On Wednesday, a coalition of anti-smoking activists said the products are another reason why state officials should continue to fund stop-smoking programs instead of diverting the money elsewhere.

Shelly Kiser, director of advocacy for the American Lung Association in Ohio, said the health risks of the products are not well-known.

“With the past history of the tobacco industry, we know they might put all sorts of dangerous things in there,” Kiser said.

R.J. Reynolds officials say the company doesn’t slip in secret ingredients but uses “finely milled tobacco mixed with non-characterizing flavors and food-grade binders,” according to the company’s Web site.

Kiser said the products can hook children and adults on tobacco, which could lead to smoking.

Also, the small size and minty flavor might encourage young people to take several at once, leading to a dangerous increase in their heart rate, Kiser said. “Nicotine is nicotine,” she said.

Four local businesses selling the new products said they have sold few despite numerous promotions.


jnash@dispatch.com
kgray@dispatch.com