Comments on: Bill would bar sales of dissolvable tobacco http://oralcancernews.org/wp/bill-would-bar-sales-of-dissolvable-tobacco/ The Oral Cancer Foundation News Archive Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:44:46 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: hilllaguna http://oralcancernews.org/wp/bill-would-bar-sales-of-dissolvable-tobacco/comment-page-1/#comment-275 hilllaguna Fri, 01 May 2009 04:02:07 +0000 http://oralcancernews.org/wp/?p=3136#comment-275 If the smokless tobacco companies are so proud of the fact that they are "marketed as tobacco products to adults", why do they make them look so much like candy? Put a package of Tic Tac's next to a package of dissolvable Orbs, and they look identical, like candy. Why do they package them in a container the shape of a cell phone? So that a kid can keep them in his pocket without his teachers or parents knowing? Please. They have done everything they can to make these initiation nicotine delivery systems and addictive to our youth. The same tactics they have used for years. Because the marketing of these products has been heavily done on the web via viral marketing - through blogs, social networking sites, and other mechanisms, many adults are completely unaware of their existence... but they are widely seen and interacted with by the younger population that is very web savvy. As to the lack of harm, since we have done no studies on the impact of dissolvable tobacco products on perhaps the stomach or other digestive tract cancers, or even pancreatic cancers that one recent study linked to smokeless, - stating that there are no studies that show they are harmful is really a semantic bit of slight of hand. NO studies? YES, that is indeed true, but as to then being not harmful because there are no studies.... we just don't know. <strong>THERE ARE NO STUDIES</strong>, so OF COURSE WE DO NOT KNOW IF THERE IS HARM. But because these products are unregulated, the manufacturers are allowed to take them to market before we know anything about their consequences to the population. We just have to look backwards at tobacco marketing in general to see the consequences of that. Tobacco is the single most preventable cause of disease in the world today, and the tobacco companies, knew what they were doing all along. It's all about the money as always, and damn the health consequences to the public. Wake up legislators and the public, you are about to be taken to the health cleaners again, and decades from now we will be paying the price in medical issues and heath related bills, and our youth will continue to be addicted to nicotine via tobacco. The more things change with products like dissolvable tobacco and snus, the more they stay the same. For anyone that wishes to follow this comment advocating for these as harm reduction strategies as a nicotine replacement therapy, please address first (I believe in NRT by the way) why tobacco should be the delivery vehicle for the nicotine when there are multiple other harmless delivery possibilities. If the smokless tobacco companies are so proud of the fact that they are “marketed as tobacco products to adults”, why do they make them look so much like candy? Put a package of Tic Tac’s next to a package of dissolvable Orbs, and they look identical, like candy. Why do they package them in a container the shape of a cell phone? So that a kid can keep them in his pocket without his teachers or parents knowing? Please. They have done everything they can to make these initiation nicotine delivery systems and addictive to our youth. The same tactics they have used for years.

Because the marketing of these products has been heavily done on the web via viral marketing – through blogs, social networking sites, and other mechanisms, many adults are completely unaware of their existence… but they are widely seen and interacted with by the younger population that is very web savvy.

As to the lack of harm, since we have done no studies on the impact of dissolvable tobacco products on perhaps the stomach or other digestive tract cancers, or even pancreatic cancers that one recent study linked to smokeless, – stating that there are no studies that show they are harmful is really a semantic bit of slight of hand. NO studies? YES, that is indeed true, but as to then being not harmful because there are no studies…. we just don’t know. THERE ARE NO STUDIES, so OF COURSE WE DO NOT KNOW IF THERE IS HARM. But because these products are unregulated, the manufacturers are allowed to take them to market before we know anything about their consequences to the population. We just have to look backwards at tobacco marketing in general to see the consequences of that. Tobacco is the single most preventable cause of disease in the world today, and the tobacco companies, knew what they were doing all along. It’s all about the money as always, and damn the health consequences to the public. Wake up legislators and the public, you are about to be taken to the health cleaners again, and decades from now we will be paying the price in medical issues and heath related bills, and our youth will continue to be addicted to nicotine via tobacco. The more things change with products like dissolvable tobacco and snus, the more they stay the same. For anyone that wishes to follow this comment advocating for these as harm reduction strategies as a nicotine replacement therapy, please address first (I believe in NRT by the way) why tobacco should be the delivery vehicle for the nicotine when there are multiple other harmless delivery possibilities.

]]>