Tobacco.org

• New smokeless tobacco products in test markets  

In a Louisville, Ky., Holiday Inn, Brown and Williamson researchers brainstormed novel ways to sell tobacco.

It was 1992, and the goal was to find "socially acceptable" ways to use it, according to one of the company's internal research and development documents. It needed to be smokeless, spitless, and not produce an odor. It needed to be fire safe, readily available and not subject to federal regulations.

Their ideas ran the gamut: tobacco pills and lotion, beverages and toothpicks. They even considered a tobacco-derived salted snack and perfume or aftershave.

Nearly two decades later, the tobacco industry's answers are showing up in test markets around the country. Utah health officials say they expect to see them rolled out across the country, and in the state, before long.

That's why they are warning consumers now: The new products look like candy and come packaged in slick, colorful containers. And they may be especially appealing to children.

"You don't look at that (the packaging) and think 'evil,'" said David Neville, a spokesman for the Utah Department of Health's Tobacco Prevention and Control Program. "You look at it and think, 'That's cute.' "

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, the manufacturer of Camel and 10 other brands, says it is only gathering input from consumers in its lead markets: Columbus, Ohio; Portland, Ore. and Indianapolis, Ind. It's unsure when -- or even if -- these new kinds of smokeless tobacco will take root as products, said spokesman David Howard. . . .

Camel's Orb -- small, brown-colored pellets -- could be easily mistaken for a Tic Tac. A 1-year-old who weighs about 23 pounds could suffer from severe toxicity or death if he or she ate as few as 10.

"It doesn't look quite as shiny or appealing," said Ellie Brownstein, a University Hospital pediatrician, "but how many kids go rifling through their mom's purse for a mint?"

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• Proposal would extend UF smoking ban to Greeks  

The University of Florida's tobacco ban would apply to fraternities and sororities when it takes effect next year, under a proposal released Wednesday by the university.

UF banned tobacco use in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium starting this season and on the property of health-related facilities starting Nov. 1. A university-wide ban is planned for July 1.

The proposed regulation, which is scheduled to be considered next month by UF trustees, would prohibit smoking as well as the use of smokeless tobacco and electronic devices meant to simulate smoking. It would apply to university-owned land in Alachua County and Jacksonville.

It also would apply to land occupied or controlled by fraternities and sororities recognized by UF, which includes property on and off campus.

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• Down to the last cigarette - and beyond  

Like a fast-food chain selling diet supplements or a gasoline company building electric cars, a major tobacco company is eyeing a surprising business: Helping the smokers who buy their products kick the habit.

Reynolds American Inc. , which sells the Camel and Pall Mall brands of cigarettes, is in talks to buy a Swedish company that makes nicotine gum and mouth spray designed to help people quit smoking by reducing their cigarette cravings, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Reynolds could buy Niconovum AB for roughly $44.5-million (U.S.), according to University of Ottawa law professor and tobacco expert David Sweanor, who said he had spoken with someone close to the deal. A spokesperson for Reynolds declined to comment.

The deal would also mark a shift for cigarette companies, many of which embraced diversification decades ago but have changed course in recent years. . . .

The acquisition of Niconovum would give Reynolds another cigarette alternative.

In addition to the gum and mouth spray, the Swedish company also makes a Snus-like product called the Zonnic pouch, which has nicotine but no tobacco. Many countries in the European Union as well as Australia and New Zealand, ban oral tobacco, Prof. Sweanor said. The pouch could give Reynolds a way around those regulations.

"I think this may be a very profitable business. They're catering to the same crowd, essentially," said Indiana University's Prof. Beneish, who was a smoker for 30 years. "They have a captive audience. Trust me."

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• A review of human carcinogens—Part E: tobacco, areca nut, alcohol, coal smoke, and salted fish 

New evidence continues to add to the extensive list of tobacco-related cancers (table); there is now sufficient evidence that tobacco smoking causes cancer of the colon3 and of the ovary.4 More than 150 epidemiological studies of tobacco smoking and breast cancer were reviewed. Large cohort studies5, 6 published since 20022 consistently show a small positive association (relative risks 1·1—1·3). Many chemicals in tobacco smoke cause mammary-gland tumours in animals, and these carcinogens are stored in breast adipose tissue in women; therefore, the Working Group concluded that there is limited evidence that tobacco smoking causes breast cancer. A causal link between parental smoking and childhood cancers has been established. Four recent studies showed that children born of parents who smoke (father, mother, or both, including the preconception period and pregnancy) are at significantly higher risk of hepatoblastoma, a rare embryonic cancer. The UK Childhood Cancer Study7 reported a relative risk of 1·86 for paternal smoking only and 2·02 for maternal smoking only, increasing to 4·74 (95% CI 1·68—13·35) when both parents smoke. For childhood leukaemia, a meta-analysis reported an association with paternal smoking before pregnancy (summary relative risk 1·12, 1·04—1·21).8 Second-hand smoke causes lung cancer.2 There is now limited evidence for an association with cancers of the larynx and the pharynx,9 whereas evidence for female breast cancer remains inconclusive. Since second-hand smoke contains most of the constituents of mainstream smoke, it might also be associated with other cancer sites. Many types of smokeless tobacco are marketed and all contain nicotine and nitrosamines. Hundreds of millions of people use smokeless tobacco, mainly in India and southeast Asia, but also in Sweden and the USA. Earlier findings showed a causal association between use of smokeless tobacco and cancers of the oral cavity and pancreas, and there is now sufficient evidence for cancer of the oesophagus.10 All of the forms of tobacco discussed above induce malignant tumours in laboratory animals.

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• Hazard in plain sight? 'Crossover products' may help hook kids on smoking, drugs 

Redford recently spoke about the products at a Marblehead Board of Health meeting, unloading for the board a bag of such products that she's collected throughout the year. Her presentation left most board members in disbelief.

"Are we the only ones who don't know about this stuff?" asked a bewildered Helaine Hazlett, the board's chairman.

Take a walk into the 7-11 store in Marblehead, and here is what you will find: "grinders" (small metal contraptions that are used to grind up tobacco or drugs), pipes, hookah pipes for smoking specially made flavored tobacco, flavored chewing tobacco, boxes of blunt wraps (tobacco-based rolling papers), cigarettes that are packaged like Chanel perfume boxes, and smokeless-tobacco gum that comes in a candy-mint-like container. The list goes on.

None of these products are illegal to sell, although in most states, including Massachusetts, to buy any tobacco-related product a person must be 18 or older. In fact, as a local tobacco-control officer, Redford's job is to conduct "compliance checks," . . .

Cigarette companies spent approximately $13 billion on advertising and promotional expenses in 2005 for those tobacco-specific products, nearly double what was spent in 1998, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Of that money, Redford says advertisers are more often targeting women and teens.

In 2008, tobacco company Philip Morris USA unrolled its sleek "purse pack" cigarette packaging containing ultra-slim cigarettes; the packaging is made to look as if it is a cosmetics case.

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• Cancer institute studies smokeless tobacco 

Is using smokeless tobacco just as harmful as smoking, or is it potentially a safer option?

Getting a definitive answer to that question has proved elusive despite centuries of medical research.

Resolving the issue, and providing clarity amid the heated rhetoric, has prompted a new series of medical studies sponsored by the National Cancer Institute.

One set focuses on whether such smokeless products as snus and the dissolvable products from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., provide "a truly less-harmful alternative to conventional tobacco products, both at the individual and population level," according to the institute's grant application.

Another set, including one that was started Sept. 1 at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, is aimed at developing strategy to encourage reduced use or even quitting smokeless-tobacco products. Wake Forest is receiving a $2.9 million grant for its study.

Maura Payne, a spokeswoman for Reynolds, said that the company supports "well-designed studies" that could help develop science-based, tobacco-harm-reduction strategies." Payne said that Reynolds does not promote its new smokeless products as a way to quit smoking.

The institute said that the studies are necessary because "previous tobacco-use reduction efforts pursued by the public-health community were disadvantaged by incomplete knowledge and methods for evaluating the health impact of modified tobacco products."

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• Ban on Flavored Tobacco Products Becomes City Law  

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed legislation on Wednesday to prohibit the sale of most forms of flavored tobacco products in New York City. The new law is more extensive than the federal Food and Drug Administration's ban on candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes, which took effect last month.

The City Council approved the bill on Oct. 14. The legislation covers "chocolate, vanilla, honey, candy, cocoa, dessert, alcoholic beverage, herb or spice flavors," but exempts "tobacco, menthol, mint or wintergreen flavors."

The city ban includes cigars and smokeless tobacco, while the federal ban is limited to cigarettes. That ban prohibits the sale of cigarettes with "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."

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• Doctor presses the case against tobacco scholarships 

A San Luis Obispo doctor is continuing to speak out against Cal Poly for allowing students to accept scholarships from the smokeless tobacco industry as prize awards in collegiate rodeo events.

University officials say Cal Poly has no basis to deny students scholarship funds from a legal source, and university officials note that no tobacco-related advertising is allowed at school events under a campus policy. Five years ago, Cal Poly officials supported creating a fund that could be an alternative to tobacco-industry scholarships, but that idea was rejected by tobacco opponents.

Stephen L. Hansen, a physician and representative of the county Tobacco Control Coalition, said he's outraged that the chewing tobacco industry lures students to a cancer-causing product through scholarships

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• Where smokers are a menace 

MAZENGO Madanga, a 55-year-old peasant from Chilonwa Village in Dodoma Rural District, who came into the municipality to beg recently, says he took up tobacco smoking nearly 20 years ago. He admits with resentment that tobacco is so addictive that abusers fail to kick the habit.

He says a friend with who he tended cattle introduced him to tobacco smoking. Initially, he says, he found it difficult to inhale the smoke that appeared to assail not only his chest and lungs but his nostrils too. What he was smoking was crushed, sun-dried tobacco leaves rolled in paper.

Twenty years down the road, today, Madanga can no longer kick the habit. In fact, apart from smoking raw tobacco, he sniffs snuff as well. He tucks some of it inside his lower lip, a practice that increased the foul smell that invariably emanates from his mouth.

A medical doctor with the municipality's Regional Hospital, who prefers anonymity, says that health complications, especially respiratory impairments, take many lives in Dodoma Region. . . .

. But the government has a good rule of thumb that requires warning signs posted on each cigarette advertisement saying it has been determined that "cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health."

The same advert is displayed on cigarrete packs and is designed to warn smokers and potential smokers against the habit. But the advert does not seem to have much impact on the fraternity of smokers. One reason is that smoking takes its tall after twenty or more years.

So, the law makes it imperative for tobacco companies to warn consumers of their products on underlying dangers of smoking. A former Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Health, Mr Hussein Mwinyi, told the National Assembly last June, 2006 that smoking in public places is a crime.

He says smokers sometimes pass problems to non-smokers around them through what is known as passive smoking and that parents who smoke near infants unwittingly put the child's health at risk. He also says a spouse who smokes endangers his or her non-smoking partner.

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• Kiddie puffin' stuff outlawed  

They are sold right next to the candy and gum at stores across Staten Island -- products like strawberry-flavored mini-cigars packaged like lip gloss.

And they will soon be illegal.

Calling it a move that will help save children from a dangerous addiction, the City Council voted yesterday to ban sales of almost all flavored tobacco products, including small cigars and chewing tobacco.

The bill, expected to be signed into law by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is the latest bit of bad news for the tobacco industry and smokers in the city, who already have been banned from all public buildings and restaurants and have seen taxes on cigarettes skyrocket.

Yesterday's ban is intended to close a loophole in a law enacted in June by the federal Food and Drug Administration banning the manufacture, importation, marketing and distribution of cigarettes made to taste like candy, fruit and cloves. Since the legal definition of a cigarette is vague, manufacturers found a way to circumvent the ban by repackaging products to make them attractive to kids, like smaller "cigarillos" and SNUS, pouches of flavored tobacco used like snuff.

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• Council votes to ban sale of flavored tobacco products  

tore.NEW YORK -- The City Council voted overwhelmingly today to ban sales of all flavored tobacco products.

The bill bars the sale of products such as strawberry- and blueberry-flavored cigars and chewing tobacco, which health experts say are a blatant attempt to hook young people on a dangerous product.

Staten Island councilmen James Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn), Vincent Ignizio (R-South Shore) and Ken Mitchell (D-North Shore) voted in favor of the bill.

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• Today’s smokeless tobacco is just as addictive and marketed to the young 

It's a misconception that just because you don't smoke nicotine, it is less addictive and less dangerous than a cigarette.

That's the fallacy and danger behind a marketing ploy for a new take on a centuries old product, snuff.

Whereas the old snuff, popular in the 1970s and 1980s in round paper containers or bags under the name Copenhagen or Skoal, was chewed and spit out, today's snuff comes in fancy containers with equally avant-garde aromas and names. And unlike its predecessor, this snuff isn't pinched into one's gums or chewed, it's inhaled through the nostrils. And it isn't being used just by baseball players or teenage boys emulating their sports idols.

Snuff is being marketed to tweens, teens and college students, both female and male, as hip, cool and healthy. It's available for a nominal cost with a simple click online.

Yet, it's anything but harmless, according to an area ear, nose and throat specialist, who is concerned that in any form, nicotine is extremely addictive. And what makes snuff so dangerous is that it doesn't fall under any federal regulations, according to a local tobacco expert.

Many feel it's the burning and inhaling of tobacco that exposes users to most carcinogens. Some specialists feel that, for health reasons, if you are going to use tobacco, you are better off using nasal snuff. But nasal snuff contains nicotine and is highly addictive, says Dr. Zephron Newmark, an ENT specialist with Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center, Plains Township.

"There is danger for long-term use," said Newmark. "If you become hooked, it can be difficult to stop."

Tony Delonti, a member of the local chapter of the American Lung Association who also serves on the Luzerne County Tobacco Free Coalition, said these latest products are outside the realm of the regular tobacco industry. "It's not a direct tobacco product so it's not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration and it doesn't come under the recent tobacco guidelines passed by the Obama administration," he said. . . .

Just how addictive and seductive is cigarette smoking and a nicotine habit to area youth?

According to a 2007 survey by Steps To A HealthierPA Luzerne County, more than half of the teens surveyed (52 percent) reported trying a cigarette. About 12 percent indicated that they had smoked their first cigarette before the age of 13. About 22 percent smoked during the past month with about 7 percent saying they smoked at school. Approximately 14 percent said they smoked 20 or more days in the past month.

More than half of the respondents (53 percent) also said they had tried to quite the habit during the past year.

Education still remains the most viable tool to get children to pass up on snuff

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• Patents - Star Scientific Breaks New Ground, Plans FDA Filing for Approval of First 'Modified Risk' Tobacco Product; Nominates Curtis Wright, MD, MPH for FDA Advisory Committee ($$) 

Star Scientific, Inc. (NASDAQ:STSI) makers of low-nitrosamine smokeless tobacco products, announced that the company will utilize a novel, patented method for cultivation, curing and preparation of tobacco to formulate dissolvable smokeless tobacco products. This new curing process was the subject of a patent application filed in December, 2008. Its use has resulted in tobacco leaf with significantly lower levels of tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs) than previously achieved using the StarCured curing process: the International Agency for Research on Cancer previously has reported on the low levels of nitrosamines in Star's products. The company believes that this novel process, as...

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• Tobacco mints a lot like candy? 

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."

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.

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• State may stub out anti-smoking funds 

Ohio is poised to reduce its spending on anti-tobacco programs from $40 million a year early this decade to nothing by the beginning of the next decade, anti-tobacco activists said yesterday while calling for cigarette taxes to be applied to other tobacco products.

Last year, state leaders dissolved a $264 million fund stocked with money from a multistate settlement with tobacco companies reached a decade earlier. At the same time, Gov. Ted Strickland's administration set aside a fraction of the money -- $6 million this year -- for the Ohio Department of Health to continue running some of the anti-smoking programs the foundation administered.

The programs include a toll-free quit line, grants to local groups and an annual survey regarding tobacco use.

Most of the foundation's money was redesignated for social services, although a Franklin County judge last month blocked the diversion. The state is appealing the ruling.

A coalition of anti-smoking activists called Investing in Tobacco-Free Youth held a news conference at the Statehouse yesterday to decry the loss of funding.

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