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The following article from the UK is pertinent to the Altria/CTFK
negotiated FDA tobacco legislation in US Congress (which protects lethal
cigarettes from market competition by less hazardous smokefree tobacco
products), and the New York Health Commissioner's petition to the FDA to
allow even less hazardous NRT products (gum, lozenges, inhalers, skin
patches) to more fairly compete against cigarettes.  On a health risk scale
from 1 to 100, whereby clean nicotine products are a 1 and cigarettes are a
100, smokeless tobacco products (snuff and chewing tobacco) are a 2.  

Please urge your two US Senators http://www.senate.gov/ to oppose the FDA
tobacco legislation unless/until it acknowledges and informs smokers that
smokefree tobacco products are less hazardous alternatives to cigarettes. 

Also, please urge the US FDA to approve the petition to change NRT warning
labels (to inform smokers that NRT products are far less hazardous
alternatives to cigarettes), to allow NRT to be sold in less expensive
daily dose units, and to allow NRT to be sold in all stores that sell
cigarettes.  Go to:
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocketDetail&d=FD
A-2008-P-0116 and click on the "Add Comments" icon to the right of the
first document titled "State of New York Department of Health - Citizen
Petition". 

Bill Godshall
- - - 

Dying for a fag? How the search is on for a smokeless alternative to
cigarettes

Nicotine is largely harmless but cigarettes are lethal . Now, the search is
on for ways to deliver the pleasure without the risks. 

By Jeremy Laurance
The Independent (London)
Tuesday, 16 September 2008 
http://www.independent.co.uk:80/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/features/dy
ing-for-a-fag-how-the-search-is-on-for-a-smokeless-alternative-to-cigarrete
s-931864.html

Smoking has been so much part of our culture for so long that it is hard to
imagine a world without it. Yet that is exactly what the Royal College of
Physicians (RCP) called for last week. The RCP suggested that, with a
concerted effort, smoking could be eliminated within 20 years. 

To achieve this, two things would have to happen, the college said. First,
curbs on smoking would have to be strengthened, principally by ramping up
taxes on tobacco. But second, and more important, access to nicotine in
other, safer, forms has to be greatly increased. 

This latter demand chimes with developments under way in the tobacco
industry. This week, the Marlboro cigarette empire Altria bought the USA's
biggest maker of chewing tobacco, UST, for $10.4bn (£5.8bn). The deal
confirms the tobacco industry's interest in diversifying out of cigarettes
into "smokeless" products. UST makes Skoal - tea bag-like pouches of
tobacco that are held between the cheek and gum, allowing nicotine to be
absorbed.

British American Tobacco is also investing heavily in the search for safer
ways to deliver nicotine. BAT paid £2bn to take control of the Swedish
company ST, which makes Snus - also pouches of tobacco for sucking.

Evidence suggests that sucking a pouch of tobacco is 90 per cent less
harmful than inhaling cigarette smoke. But the products are banned in the
EU on the grounds that they are, er, carcinogenic, and that to replace one
carcinogen with another, albeit one less lethal, is unwise. 

Meanwhile, investigations are under way into alternative ways of delivering
nicotine that will satisfy the most hardened of addicts. As more smokers
give up, those who puff on are the ones who require most support to quit.
Nicotine gum and patches won't cut it; these are addicts who need the "hit"
that only a lungful of smoke supplies. 

Nicotine is the closest we are likely to get to the perfect drug. Its
effects are diverse; it stimulates, calms and enhances feelings of
pleasure, but has few side effects. Its great advantage over other drugs is
that its effects are mild. It is pleasurable only within a narrow range of
concentrations in the blood. That is what makes it safe. 

Only the instrument of its delivery - the cigarette - is lethal. A device
that delivers nicotine quickly, efficiently and safely could earn a
fortune. But regulations on the sale of medicinal nicotine are so tight
that they keep prices high - seven days' worth of nicotine patches costs
£17 - and the development of innovative products low.

Professor John Britton, consultant respiratory physician and chief author
of the RCP report, said: "The ideal product would be a nicotine inhaler
like an asthma inhaler, that delivered a hit of nicotine as close as
possible to the experience of smoking a cigarette.

"But the companies [makers of nicotine gum and patches] don't want to do it
and the regulatory restrictions make it difficult to get it on to the
market. There is no competition. That is why we need a Nicotine Regulatory
Authority." 

The anomaly in the existing law is glaring. Tobacco companies are permitted
to sell nicotine to the public in the form of (lethal) cigarettes, yet it
is illegal to sell alternative nicotine products without a licence. 

Nicotine patches and chewing gums available on prescription and, now, sold
over the counter are strictly regulated medicinal products designed for
short-term use by people trying to quit. They do not deliver the hit
required to satisfy hardened smokers. 

Tobacco companies have experimented with smokeless cigarettes, nicotine
sprays and other devices, without success. Smokers say the products have
been unpleasant to taste, difficult to use and hard to smoke. 

What is needed is a medicinal nicotine product designed not as a short-term
crutch to support the quitter, but for long-term use as part of a "harm
reduction" approach. This idea is backed by the Royal College of Physicians
and by Ash, the antismoking charity, but it causes disquiet among some
public health experts who blanch at the prospect of condoning nicotine
dependency. 

Yet an effective medicinal product would be a better option than chewing
tobacco. The evidence suggests that nicotine is, if anything, less harmful
than caffeine – if it carries less risk than a cup of coffee, where's the
problem in making it freely available in a more attractive form? And many
in the health field are suspicious of the tobacco industry, believing that
the promotion of sucking pouches is another way to keep us hooked on
tobacco.

There are signs that the Government may be willing to listen. Close readers
of its cancer reform strategy, published last year, noted that the
Department of Health said it would consult on measures "to reduce the
significant harm to health caused by smoking for those who are addicted to
nicotine and not able to quit altogether".

Britton, who is the head of the Department of Public Health at the
University of Nottingham, points to the lives such a strategy could save.
Of the 10 million current smokers in Britain, half will die prematurely if
they do not quit.

He says: "If these people can be encouraged to use a safer product instead,
the impact on public health would be huge. If we end up with a society in
which a lot of people use a safe nicotine product every day, so what?"
.