Tobacco News

A key advisory committee warned the Food and Drug Administration Wednesday that little is known about the health effects of so-called modified-risk tobacco products, suggesting makers of smokeless tobacco and other alternatives to conventional cigarettes face high hurdles before they can market them as less harmful.

The report by the Institute of Medicine coincided with another government-sponsored study showing cigarette use hitting historic lows among U.S. teenagers, even as more youths have turned in recent years to smokeless products such as moist snuff and pouches called snus.
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In the smoker-heavy state of Kentucky, a cancer center is suggesting something that most health experts won’t and the tobacco industry can’t: If you really want to quit, switch to smoke-free tobacco.
The James Graham Brown Cancer Center and the University of Louisville are aiming their “Switch and Quit” campaign at the city of Owensboro. It uses print, radio, billboard and other advertising to urge smokers to swap their cigarettes for smokeless tobacco and other products that do not deliver nicotine by smoke. Ream more »

Using the World Series as their stage, Senate leaders and health officials are calling on Major League Baseball to get tough on tobacco.
Dr. Cynthia Simmons, Arlington’s public health authority, and Pamela Walker, her counterpart in St. Louis, Mo., are asking their respective hometown baseball players to refrain from using smokeless tobacco throughout the Series, because kids are watching. Ream more »

The public fight over tobacco is taking new shapes, literally, as Colorado becomes a testing ground for nicotine in the form of toothpicks, breath mints and strips that dissolve on the tongue.
The new forms of tobacco — potentially attractive to kids and a crutch for smokers whom health officials say should quit nicotine altogether — prompted public hearings and a scramble by regulators.
Tobacco critics condemn the products as dangerous “candy” and a cynical move by Big Tobacco to boost sales. Ream more »

The number of high school students who smoke is dropping, but the number of high school students who use other tobacco products is rising. These other tobacco products include snus, nicotine pills, chewing tobacco, cigars, and even a liquid that looks and works like hand sanitizer. These products can be very deceiving to parents who may not know what they are.
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Nearly everyone has heard the old maxim that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Surely, that warning should be kept in mind when it comes to electronic cigarettes, the latest development in a decades-long effort to find safer ways to provide a nicotine fix.
What’s different in this case is that e-cigarettes don’t involve smoking. They are plastic or metal tubes that contain a nicotine solution instead of tobacco, and are inhaled as a battery heats the liquid into a vapor.
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The Wall Street Journal “Numbers Guy” blog said that while smokeless tobacco products remain far less popular than cigarettes in the United States, a collection of products that deliver nicotine without smoke—including dip, chew, snuff and newer items that look more like chewing gum—have sparked a heated debate about health risks. Read more