Tobacco products may fool some

They look like mints, chewing gum, a green marking pen and bottled water. They have healthy sounding flavors including peach and apple, and they smell like fruits. They are tobacco products.

“The Washington County Health Partners Inc. created the backpack of non-tobacco items and their tobacco product look-alikes to show schools and legislators what the very ingenious tobacco people are doing to market to our youth,” said Clara Hinton, Somerset County tobacco educator. She is also on the executive coalition of the Washington County Health Partners Inc.

There is Camel Snus, a spitless tobacco product, that comes in flavors. The package looks like a cell phone or a container of mints. Skoal cut tobacco’s package also looks like mints or beef jerky. Ariva and Stonewall dissolvable tobacco products look like breath mints. White Owl Blunts in flavors including grape and strawberry look like the marking pen. Revved Up, a caffeinated energy dip, looks like mints. NicLite, a nicotine water sold as a homeopathic product, looks like a small bottle of regular water.

“This is one you won’t guess,” Hinton said. “It looks like a single packaged alcohol wipe. It blew me away. It is Nicogel. A kid could sit in class and the teacher would think he’s using a sanitizing gel and he is getting a fix in class.”

The dissolvable tobacco products contain two milligrams of nicotine, which is slightly higher than a cigarette.

“Little kids can overdose on just 10 milligrams,” she said. “This is serious stuff.”

The “What’s in Your Child’s Backpack” educational tool kit was developed as a regional effort across 10 counties.

“Most of these products are under $3, easy to hide, and look, taste and smell like candy,” Lee Rutledge-Falcione, director of Washington County Health Partners Inc., said in a written statement. “Aggressive marketing and development of these new products is promoting the use of smokeless products and putting our youth at risk. It is very important that tobacco use prevention education continues, even in this tight budget year.”

Tobacco companies spend $534 million to market their products in Pennsylvania, according to the Washington County Health Partners. Each year 18,500 Pennsylvania young people become new daily smokers.

Adults are also using the products, which cost much less than cigarettes, Hinton said. She teaches a smoking cessation class at Somerset Hospital and many of the adults in the class had already seen all the tobacco products.

“Pennsylvania is sadly the only state that does not have a tax or user-fee on other tobacco products,” she said. “Thirty percent of all teens who try nicotine products get addicted. It is a drug. It works on the brain. It has a permanent effect on the structure of the brain. We know kids are buying it — it’s affordable and it’s available and more products are coming out. Parents and teachers need to be aware because they may think something’s harmless and it’s not. Young people already know about it.

Clearing The Air On Tobacco Control

Issues relating to the supply of tobacco and the demand for tobacco products are increasingly being made the subject of controversy in sections of the print media. It is against this background, and in direct response to an open letter from the Jamaican Coalition on Tobacco Control, published in The Gleaner, dated March 2, that Carreras seeks to clarify some of the issues raised and to inform the debate.

Carreras would like to refute any argument which questions the long-standing commitment of the company to nation building.

As a legal commercial enterprise and as a company deeply committed to national development, Carreras continues to fulfil its obligations in contributing to both the social and economic development of Jamaica. In fact, our contributions extend beyond our payment of taxes, which for the 2010-2011 fiscal year amounts to more than $10 billion, to our almost 50-year involvement and support to empowering through education, upliftment of civic and community life, Jamaican arts and culture and environmental preservation. It is also reflected in the company's continued willingness to sit down with the Government to discuss how the company can continue aligning its corporate social investments to areas of national priority.

Demand and supply

It is public knowledge that as a company we no longer cultivate tobacco locally or source locally grown tobacco for our production purposes in Jamaica since 2000. The present expansion of tobacco growing in Jamaica is a response to a demand that Jamaicans are acting entirely on their own initiative to supply. It is the market which regulates both demand and supply.

Recently, the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) conducted a study on the level of tobacco cultivation in Jamaica. The results showed the prevalence of tobacco cultivation nationally, where currently there are more than 500 tobacco farmers with approximately 300 acres under tobacco cultivation.

Consequently, our move to partner with the Government, specifically the Ministry of Agriculture, and RADA, reflects our support for the formalisation of the currently unregulated tobacco farming sector. We, therefore, urge all participants in the debate on the expansion of local tobacco farming to make a clear distinction between the responsibilities and functions of the Government of Jamaica and those of Carreras. The Government regulates and controls the use of tobacco products. Carreras is compliant and supports the Government in these efforts.

Treaty not breached

We wish to highlight that the support being placed behind tobacco farming is not a contravention of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). In fact, many countries which are signatories of the FCTC are leading tobacco-growing and leaf-production countries globally. Some of these countries include: Brazil, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chile, Peru, Venezuela and Argentina.

Carreras would like to unequivocally state that we support the need for tobacco control legislation in Jamaica, and we support balanced and sensible legislation as one part of the policy mix to reduce the health impact of tobacco use and to address our stakeholders' concerns about tobacco products. In fact, the company has for several years been voluntarily observing codes of conduct related to many of the areas that are to be formally addressed by the enactment of the proposed tobacco-control regulations.

We would also like to highlight that our implementation of a Youth Smoking Prevention Campaign is another reflection of our deep-seated and core belief that underage persons should not consume tobacco products. Carreras makes explicit its policy and principle of no sales to minors and our business partners are aware of the penalties thereof, which include our discontinuing the business relationship.

Christopher Brown is corporate and regulatory affairs manager of Carreras Limited.

Iowa Bill Seeks To Restrict Candy-Like Tobacco Products

Iowa legislators are considering restricting the availability of dissolvable tobacco products that look and taste like candy, The Daily Iowan reports.

Addressing the concern that the products target minors, the proposal seeks to allow only businesses with 90 percent of gross sales coming from tobacco products and that allow customers 18 and older to enter the store to sell the products.

The Iowa Senate could vote on the bill as early as next week. State Sen. Rob Hogg said the increased presence of the products influenced the Senate’s Human Resource Committee to approve a bill February 22 limiting locations of sale.

“They’re highly addictive products and have a lot of nicotine in them, and they’re being sold as something they really aren’t,” he said.


R.J. Reynolds, producer of Camel cigarettes addressed the issue last June in a press release, emphasizing the distinction between its tobacco products and mints or candy, saying the dissolvable products are produced for and marketed to adults.

State Sen. Robert Bacon voted against the bill, which he characterized as unnecessary, saying that the product’s packaging is distinct from candy and mints.


“It looks like a Tic-Tac, but it isn’t packaged like a Tic-Tac,” he said. “It has warnings on it, and it’ll be behind the counter."

Democratic legislator, anti-tobacco advocates propose tobacco-tax increase

A Democratic lawmaker, backed by anti-tobacco forces, said Tuesday she will introduce a bill to raise cigarette taxes by $1.50 a pack, with commensurate increases for other tobacco products.Cigarettes are the most used tobacco products by people. There can be different brands like : Parliament cigarettes, Dunhill cigarettes or Armada cigarettes.
“I like to call it a tobacco-user fee,” said Rep. Trudi Schmidt, D-Great Falls, who said money raised by the higher tax will fund tobacco-cessation programs and other health-related programs.
Schmidt and members of the Alliance for a Healthy Montana and the American Cancer Society-Cancer Action Network pointed to a poll they commissioned that said 70 percent of Montanans support the higher tobacco tax. The higher tax will discourage people from smoking as well as fund anti-tobacco and health programs, they said.
“This is an addiction that continues to cost us for generations, and it needs to be stopped,” said Richard Sargent, a family physician in Helena and outspoken critic of tobacco.
When asked whether her bill would be supported by a Republican legislative majority that has stated its opposition to any tax increases, Schmidt said the proposal is a “creative solution” to provide revenue for anti-tobacco programs that have been cut from the state’s proposed budget the next two years.
If the bill fails to pass the Legislature, a voter initiative is “always an option,” she said, in response to a question.
Montana taxes cigarettes at $1.70 per pack, the 17th-highest state tobacco tax in the nation. Most of Montana’s tax on cigarettes and tobacco has been approved by voter initiatives. The highest state tobacco tax in the country is New York, at $4.35 per pack.
Money from the increased tax on tobacco would pay for tobacco-prevention programs, aging services programs, scholarships for primary-care physicians in the state, obesity-prevention programs and maternal and child health programs.
Supporters of the tax said the increased tax would not only fund health and anti-tobacco programs, but also increase the price of cigarettes and other products to the point that some people would quit or not start in the first place because of the cost.
“What this tax is, is it gives tobacco addicts another reason to break that addiction,” Sargent said.