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

WASHINGTON – On Monday, U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products sent an open letter to the tobacco industry reminding them that cigarettes “containing certain characterizing flavors are considered adulterated under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA or the Act), as amended by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (FSPTCA).”

An excerpt of the letter follows. Download a PDF for the entire text.

“Congress has stated that flavors make cigarettes more appealing to youth and often result in exposure to additional carcinogens and other toxic constituents. The removal from the market of cigarettes that contain certain characterizing flavors is an important step in FDA’s efforts to reduce the burden of illness and death caused by tobacco products.

“The FSPTCA…establishes a tobacco product standard special rule for cigarettes that states in part…a cigarette or any of its component parts (including the tobacco, filter, or paper) shall not contain, as a constituent (including a smoke constituent) or additive, an artificial or natural flavor (other than tobacco or menthol) or an herb or spice, including strawberry, grape, orange, clove, cinnamon, pineapple, vanilla, coconut, licorice, cocoa, chocolate, cherry, or coffee, that is a characterizing flavor of the tobacco product or tobacco smoke.

“As of the September 22, 2009, effective date, cigarettes and their component parts that fail to comply with the special rule established under section 907 are deemed adulterated under section 902 of the Act. Under the Act, adulterated products sold or held for sale in the United States may be subject to seizure under section 304 of the Act. In addition, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers may be subject to injunction actions, civil money penalties, and/or criminal prosecution for violating the requirements of the Act (FFDCA, sections 301, 302, 303). FDA intends to use the full range of enforcement tools within the Agency’s authority to ensure compliance with the new requirement.”

With cigarette bans in full force in restaurants, the appeal of a hookah bar gains popularity in younger crowds. Appeal among young people has been increasing since the 1990’s, and more bars are popping up in the United States. Smoking herbal tobacco, called shisha, from at a hookah bar could pose health risks, but is currently the subject of some debate.

Research about the health risks of smoking shisha at hookah bars seems to be lacking, leaving consumers uninformed.

Smoke inhaled from a hookah is believed to be less addictive and toxic than tobacco smoke, but that may not be the case. Smoking fruit flavored tobacco, called shisha, from a hookah is becoming a fad among college students. There is some debate about the potential harm from shisha.

Hookah bars have been popular in the UK, and are spreading across the United States as college age youth seek the ambience of hookah lounges complete with soft cushions and low stools that create an atmosphere of relaxation and increased socialization.

Hookah bars are gaining appeal, but young people should be warned of the potential health risks, at least until more studies are done.

According to a report from the BBC, smoking shisha from a hookah pipe is much more dangerous to health than smoking cigarettes. That notion has been challenged by Dr Kamal Chaouachi, a tobacco expert who teaches at Paris IX University. Chaouachi says there is no research evidence that smoking shisha at hookah bars pose health risks to youth.

Until more studies are done, it may be wise to avoid hookah bars, or at least exercise caution about inhaling too much shisha from a hookah pipe. Though the ambience of a hookah bar is appealing, it is important to know that more research about the health risks of smoking shisha at a hookah bar are needed.

© Examiner

LINCOLN — The after-work regulars at Nickleby’s smoke shop soon could be returning to an old tradition.
If all goes as manager Tim Vanderpool hopes, customers will be able to start sipping scotch while smoking their cigars and discussing the world’s problems.

The Omaha shop is among a handful of businesses around Nebraska that plan to take advantage of a new state law.

The law, which takes effect Aug. 30, creates an exemption from the statewide public smoking ban for specially licensed cigar bars.
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But it might be a couple of months before the first match is lit in any cigar bar.

The Nebraska Liquor Control Commission will hold a hearing Thursday on rules and regulations to implement the new law. Hobert Rupe, the commission’s executive director, said he doesn’t expect to be ready to take applications before the end of September.

Under the new law, such bars cannot sell food or allow cigarette smoking.

They must have walk-in humidors — special rooms with temperature and humidity controls for storing and displaying cigars.

They also must get at least 10 percent of their gross revenue from selling tobacco products other than cigarettes and cannot boost tobacco revenue by offering drink specials with tobacco purchases.

The law will let Nickleby’s, once again, offer alcohol with its cigars.

Vanderpool said the business was a smoking lounge until last year. When the Omaha smoking ban was broadened, the business dropped its liquor license and stuck with tobacco sales.

Other businesses, such as Jake’s Cigars and Spirits in Omaha, chose to keep their liquor licenses and move smoking outdoors.

Jake’s owner John Larkin pushed hard to get the cigar bar exemption passed. He said his business took a big hit under the smoking ban.

“For us, it’s going to be awesome, but it’s definitely a niche thing,” he said of the new law.

Larkin plans to allow indoor smoking again at his Omaha location, at least for those smoking cigars or pipes. He is expanding his Lincoln smoke shop and opening a cigar bar there for the first time.

Nebraska’s smoking ban applies to all public buildings and workplaces. It exempts tobacco shops, some hotel rooms, laboratories used for research on smoking and home-based businesses.

The law faces a pending legal challenge. Big John’s Billiards, an Omaha pool hall, argued in Lancaster County District Court that exemptions to the smoking ban are arbitrary and amount to special legislation in violation of the state constitution.

402-473-9583, martha.stoddard@owh.com

August 19, 2009