[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/05/27/costello.camel.snus.art.jpg caption="CNN's Carol Costello reports on new smokeless tobacco products that critics say are geared toward children."]
From CNN's Bob Ruff
Cigarettes and Washington have never been a good mix.
For decades the federal government has battled with the tobacco industry. The government says cigarettes kill people and “Big Tobacco” says smoking is a matter of choice.
Today cigarette advertising remains banned from radio and television.
Those warning labels on the sides of cigarette packages have gotten stronger over the years. And the Surgeon General says that smoking “causes diseases in nearly every organ of the body.”
Even the tobacco industry has finally agreed that there can be health risks to smoking. R.J. Reynolds Vice President Tommy Payne told CNN’s Carol Costello Tuesday that “when you’re inhaling the smoke, that is the primary cause for the chronic diseases associated with the 400,000 premature deaths, whether it be lung cancer (or) emphysema...”
So has Big Tobacco thrown in the towel? Hardly.
A new product from R.J. Reynolds is being test marketed in Portland, Oregon; Indianapolis and Columbus. It’s called "Camel Strips," a small pellet of finely milled tobacco that dissolves in the mouth. It puts nicotine directly into the body, but there’s no smoke as in traditional cigarettes. Later in the year the company will test market in those same three cities two other dissolvable products: the "Camel Stick," which is about the size of a toothpick, and "Camel Strips," which resemble those breath strips that are so popular with consumers.
“They don’t have second-hand smoke,” says Payne. “They don’t have a litter problem....and when compared to smoking and the impact that it has on our society, these products at least should be made available for those who can’t or won’t quit.”
Enter Washington.
Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) aren’t buying any of this. They’ve introduced legislation that would allow the FDA to control how dissolvables are marketed and put warning labels on them.
The American Cancer Society is equally concerned about the new products. “It looks very innocent,” says the American Cancer Society’s Dan Smith, “and you think what can be wrong with this, but in fact...these products actually contain as much if not more nicotine than a pack of cigarettes.” Smith is also concerned that the cool, cell phone-like packaging of dissolvables makes them a gateway drug for teenagers. “You’re getting them addicted to nicotine which then leads them to possibly wanting to do other things (like) cigarettes.”
Payne says it’s smoke that’s the real health problem here and not nicotine. And he says the new products are intended for adults and not children or teens.
Congress is expected to vote on the Merkley-Brown bill later in the year.