US Anti-tobacco Groups Upset about Cigarette Alternatives

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • darkwing
    Member
    • Oct 2007
    • 415

    US Anti-tobacco Groups Upset about Cigarette Alternatives

    New ways to ingest nicotine -- and fight it


    Anti-tobacco conference details plethora of new products, and health researchers' response.

    By Josephine Marcotty, Star Tribune Minnesota

    Last update: October 25, 2007 – 11:39 PM


    New ways to ingest nicotine -- and fight it
    The choices for smokers used to be so simple. There were cigarettes. And there were cigars. Maybe an occasional pipe.
    But as the tobacco industry attempts to adapt to smoking bans, it is developing dozens of new ways for the body to absorb nicotine -- from hookahs to snus to lozenges to smokeless nicotine delivery systems. And, in a clear attempt to attract younger users, they come in more flavors than you can find at a Ben & Jerry's ice cream store.

    Public health and anti-tobacco experts are perplexed about all those new products. Some might be a safer alternative to cigarettes and could help smokers quit. On the other hand, they know almost nothing about how many carcinogens they harbor, how they're marketed, who uses them and why.

    That new terrain in the world of tobacco was sketched Thursday by Dorothy Hatsukami, a tobacco researcher at the University of Minnesota, for some of the approximately 3,000 anti-tobacco experts from around the world who are in Minneapolis this week for the National Conference on Tobacco or Health.

    "Is it a gateway drug to cigarette smoking?" she said. "Does it help them quit smoking? We don't know."

    For the first time, the National Cancer Institute has developed an experimental fast-track research process so scientists and public health officials can keep up with those new products and devise their own public programs to counter them. They said they do not want a repeat of the public health debacle that occurred with the introduction of low-tar cigarettes. They were marketed as a healthier alternative, but turned out to be just as dangerous as the full-strength variety.

    Some of the new products are smokeless. There are snus -- little pouches of tobacco that users put in their cheeks -- and lozenges. There are also new variations on ancient ways to smoke. Hookahs, for example, are an ongoing trend with teenagers and young adults.

    There are now hookah bars in some 33 states, said marketing expert Barry Matthews, and they are usually found around college campuses.

    "But what's in the smoke," he said. And how does it compare to cigarette smoking?

    Even though some users believe that flavored tobacco pulled through water is cleaner, the little analysis that has been done doesn't show that, he said. Hookah tobacco has more nicotine and vastly more tar than a cigarette, Matthews said. In addition to the diseases normally associated with tobacco, hookah smoking carries the added risk of infectious disease from sharing the mouthpiece, he said.

    One of the most startling new trends in tobacco use has been the sharp increase in small cigars, such as Winchester and Swisher.

    They're becoming more popular because cigars are taxed at much lower rates, making them much less expensive. Manufacturers are now making them -- and marketing them -- a lot like cigarettes, but in dozens of flavors. In 2006 there were 4.5 billion sold in the United States, the highest number ever, she said. And while that pales in comparison to the hundreds of billions of cigarettes that are sold, it's an alarming trend, she said.

    Anti-tobacco organizers have asked the federal government to more precisely define cigarettes and cigars. If it agrees and clearly delineates the difference between them, then the small-cigar market could disappear, she said.

    The newest tobacco products to arrive in the United States are snus, often described as spitless tobacco.

    Snus alarm health advocates because the tobacco companies market them as a replacement for cigarettes in places where people can't smoke. Camel SNUS, which are now being test marketed in a few U.S. cities, come with the tag line "pleasure for whenever."

    Research shows that they have fewer carcinogens than other sorts of tobacco products but just as much nicotine, Hatsukami said. They could help people quit smoking or it could just keep smokers addicted.

    Anti-tobacco researchers are on it, however, with the new, fast-track grant-making system at the National Cancer Institute. Normally, it can take a year or more before the federal government approves a research grant and many more months before the studies are completed.

    But now, even as the tobacco manufacturers are test-marketing snus in Indianapolis, Portland, Oregon, and on the Internet, their anti-tobacco counterparts are shadowing them -- and presenting what they find at conferences such as the one this week in Minneapolis.

    They have even adopted an attitude about this program that sounds more like warfare than staid scientific research. They call it "rapid mobilization."

    Josephine Marcotty • 612-673-394
  • lxskllr
    Member
    • Sep 2007
    • 13435

    #2
    And, in a clear attempt to attract younger users, they come in more flavors than you can find at a Ben & Jerry's ice cream store.


    Jackasses :roll: I get tired of seeing this tripe posted around the web. I guess 39 years old is a younger user, because I find the flavored snus appealing. I think they expect the tobacco companies to release products that closely imitate the flavor of dog shit, so nobody will want them.

    Anti tobacco zealots can go to hell. I don't want them looking after my health, and I certainly don't want them taxing products I enjoy under the guise of protecting the "children". Kids and patriotism are the cloaks most used by the dictators to push their own agendas.

    Comment

    • Master Chief
      Member
      • May 2007
      • 46

      #3
      To be honest, this passage sickens me, even though I'm young (just 17, haha) I'm all about the pure tobacco flavor of Lucky Strike, although I do enjoy some roda lacket every now and then.

      I'm not a big user of flavored snus, so I don't see how this passage can relate to me, more flavors then a Ben and Jerry's ice cream shop, yea right, the last time I was at a Ben and Jerry's, they had more then 30 flavors. I honestly doubt that snus has more than 10! Ok maybe 15...

      It's really retarded of this person to write about snus if they aren't going to research all the different brands, buy hey, its just a loaded article...it still sickens me though...

      Comment

      • RealmofOpeth
        Member
        • May 2007
        • 407

        #4
        Originally posted by lxskllr
        Kids and patriotism are the cloaks most used by the dictators to push their own agendas.
        yeah. don't forget external threats

        Comment

        • Soft Morning, City!
          Member
          • Sep 2007
          • 772

          #5
          What a bullshit article. As I posted someplace else, the anti-tobacco mob will never be happy as long as even one person in the world is using tobacco products. They want it completely wiped off the face of the earth, and seeing as how this will never happen, I at least retain some joy in watching them fight a fight that will never be won.

          What a bizarre group. They bitch about cigarettes until they're blue in the face, take a brief breath, then proceed to bitch about the safer alternatives that could potentially take the market away from cigarettes. A lot less people would die. But no, it's still tobacco and it's still addictive, so it's still evil.

          Idiots. All of them. Complete idiots.

          Comment

          • Kindrd
            Member
            • Oct 2007
            • 266

            #6
            That makes no sence, especially with all the flavored snuff that has been out forever.

            Comment

            • chainsnuser
              Senior Member
              • Jan 2007
              • 1388

              #7
              Originally posted by Soft Morning, City!
              What a bullshit article. As I posted someplace else, the anti-tobacco mob will never be happy as long as even one person in the world is using tobacco products.
              As I said before, some of the anti-tobacco-activists gain public money by spreading their propaganda. Some of them really make the more money, the more people keep smoking. They would be umemployed, if people would change their habits and switch from cigarettes to a much less harmful, if not even harmless product. That's where all the lies about smokeless tobacco come from.

              Of course, there also are some anti-tobacco-maniacs, maintaining their private webpages. Maybe they have lost someone of their family and in that case I understand, if they hate tobacco in every form.

              But all the health-professionals (self proclaimed or "real"), who tell outright lies about smokeless-tobacco just to feed their own bank-account, they shall go to hell. They are responsible for millions of deaths around the world. The deaths of people, who continue smoking, because they think smokeless tobacco is just as harmful or even more harmful than smoking.

              Cheers!

              Comment

              • Kindrd
                Member
                • Oct 2007
                • 266

                #8
                Well if it wasn't harmfull they would have no justification for excessive taxation. :roll:

                Comment

                • Craig de Tering
                  Member
                  • Nov 2006
                  • 525

                  #9
                  Originally posted by Soft Morning, City!
                  What a bizarre group. They bitch about cigarettes until they're blue in the face, take a brief breath, then proceed to bitch about the safer alternatives that could potentially take the market away from cigarettes. A lot less people would die. But no, it's still tobacco and it's still addictive, so it's still evil.

                  Idiots. All of them. Complete idiots.
                  If you try to understand irrationality you'll end up frying your brains. ;-)

                  Remember that some people have no life beyond agitating against something, anything. Especially if it's seen by others as a worthwhile cause. These folks' behavior reminds me somewhat of Munchausen by proxy.
                  Since this agitation is their sole purpose for living they tend to go absolutely nuts at the thought that their life's passion might someday be taken away.
                  Kinda like religious fanatics. As long as they're spewing diatribes they're in their "zone", tickling their God-spot.

                  Comment

                  • richardmark
                    New Member
                    • Nov 2007
                    • 11

                    #10
                    anti tobacco zelots

                    Hi as you probaly know in the EU oral snuff/snus is banned except in Sweden & Norway, this ban was brought about in the 80s and finally passed in 1991 as a result of UST trying to market Skoal Bandits in the UK
                    As a small child now 33 I can remember the TV ads in the UK for the guy on horse back wearing a bandaner within a green background.
                    At the time the then conservative government under Thatcher gave a grant to UST to manufacture the product in Scotland
                    So the political idiots in Brussels ban snuff/snus, but you can still buy loose leaf american products like Redman & Apple Jack all be it in small areas once popular with coal mining or in the citys like London / Manchester / Leeds ect. In the towns up and down the UK where the Indian population is prevelant you can also buy indian made products.
                    Many of my Indian colleagues at work use Indian branded oral tobacco
                    Now what I am getting to is this these later products are as toxic as hell (indian) not as bad as smoking but still pretty bad, and yet Snus which is as about as healthy as you can get is still off the books. Swedish match is challenging the ban at present I believe and there are some medical doctors who are waking upto the fact (ASH), but how these politicians/doctors can sleep at night by banning a product which would save literally thousands of lives a year in the EU alone beats me, as stated before in previous blogs its the zelots who want all tobacco products banned who can't except and see that Snus could help millions of people around the world who are addicted to nicotine and those who enjoy tobacco use like myself but would rather live a few extra years without stinking the house out, and of course without a painful death on oxygen tanks having the option.
                    They are absolute swines of the first degree and they are now complicite in the deaths of those people by prohibiting a safer option. I hope they all rot.

                    Comment

                    • darkwing
                      Member
                      • Oct 2007
                      • 415

                      #11
                      A lot of the bitching and moaning about snus has to do with the fact that it is a tobacco product and that it is made and marketed by tobacco companies. Anti tobacco "activists" have taken over all public discourse about anything related to tobacco and it is closely linked to a crusade against the companies themselves. I find it incredible that here in Canada there is relentless advertising of nicotine replacement products like payches and gum, created by pharamceutical companies, yet snus is being "studied" warily in one test market. The public information about snus is very limited and mostly consists of anti tobacco loudmouths saying that snus is carcinogenic, leads young people to start smoking etc. etc. There is very very little logic in the discussions and a lot of rhetoric that has been used against cigarette smoking. Where this will lead is anyone's guess, but likely relegate snus to a fringe market and keep it under strict regulation and suspicion. I expect to see anti-snus "public service" ads soon enough. God forbid anyone enjoy a relatively harmless tobacco product which has zero effect on bystanders!

                      Comment

                      • Soft Morning, City!
                        Member
                        • Sep 2007
                        • 772

                        #12
                        darkwing:

                        Your use of the word "loudmouth" was spot on. I don't use that word very often, but this is a very applicable occasion.

                        And yeah, snus has zero effect on those around you. A snus user breathing on you won't make you have a coughing fit or come down with cancer (though I still don't believe that exposure to second hand smoke in an open air environment causes much harm, if any). If anything, it puts us at a slightly elevated health risk as opposed to those that don't use tobacco products at all. So what? Drinking does the same thing. Fatty food does the same thing.

                        Oh well though. The ignorant will remain ignorant of their own volition. Fine by me as long as it doesn't jeopardize my innocent consumption of snus.

                        Comment

                        • nicotinedream
                          Member
                          • Oct 2006
                          • 66

                          #13
                          Snus Users....

                          HEY, It's only Snus.

                          Comment

                          Working...
                          X