The drug companies' allies in the medical and public health fields are already beating the drum for regulatory agencies such as the FDA to permit nicotine replacement products to be used for harm reduction and as substitutes for tobacco.
| "…there should be a huge market for alternative nicotine delivery systems. A move toward risk reduction could significantly benefit public health, provide consumer choice and allow free market forces to combat the leading cause of preventable death [tobacco]. However, market forces are currently prevented from providing consumers with the risk reducing products they want because of existing regulatory systems. Tobacco products have been exempted from consumer protection laws, but there are no such exemptions for other nicotine delivery products, e.g. NRT. This has resulted in an exceedingly uneven playing field for nicotine products…." Sweanor D, "Regulatory imbalance between medicinal and non-medicinal nicotine," Addiction, 95 Suppl 1:S25-8, Jan 2000. |
| "Coordinating the efforts of the pharmaceutical industry, clinicians and researchers will probably be important in moving regulatory authorities further in the direction of accepting NRT for widespread use in smoking reduction." West R, "Addressing regulatory barriers to licensing nicotine products for smoking reduction," Addiction, 95, Suppl 1:S29-34, Jan 2000. |
But the tobacco industry is fighting back by trying to produce reduced harm products of its own. At least three cigarette companies have developed "safer" cigarettes. Brown and Williamson is prepared to market a mint-flavored nicotine lozenge that smokers can suck on when they are unable to smoke, Swedish Match has developed a nicotine gum, and UST is marketing Revel, new mint-flavored snuff packets which will be advertised as a "fresh" way for smokers to enjoy tobacco when they can't have a cigarette (Gordon Fairclough, "UST Pushes Mint-Flavored Tobacco With New Look, Marketing Campaign," The Wall St. Journal, Aug 1, 2001).
The drug companies and their anti-tobacco allies are not at all happy about this new competition from the tobacco companies, and their spin-doctors and supporters are busy demanding FDA regulation of tobacco products. Ken Warner, who was an advisor to an Institute of Medicine panel to investigate "harm reduction" in reduced-risk tobacco products as well as pharmaceutical nicotine products, attacked the tobacco products:
| "All of the products that have been proposed to date from the tobacco industry represent risky products. You are still getting nicotine, you are still inhaling a chemical soup compared to not smoking at all." |
And defended the pharmaceutical companies:
| "It is ironic and tragic that we subject the manufacturers of the safest nicotine delivery products ever developed to this hugely expansive process to establish safety and efficacy, and we impose absolutely no regulatory marketing restrictions on the most deadly form of nicotine ever developed." Both quotes are in Glenn Howatt, "Panel: Patches, gums, reduced-smoke cigarettes may be no safer," Minneapolis Star Tribune, Feb 23, 2001. Warner has been a particular funding favorite of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. |
Panel member Dorothy Hatsukami, another recipient of Robert Wood Johnson funding, called for Congress to enact legislation to give the FDA regulatory authority over the reduced-risk cigarettes. And drug giant Pharmacia was very pleased that the Institute of Medicine report advocated that the tobacco companies be held to the same standards as the pharmaceutical companies, no doubt by FDA regulation.
Anti-tobacco activist Clive Bates of ASH was outraged that the media didn't report the findings of the panel more favorably for the drug companies:
| "Missing from the coverage was any sense that there are practical harm reducing measures that can be taken without giving away the entire field to Philip Morris. It is possible to authorize NRT products for harm reduction application, and it is possible to allow nicotine gum to compete with cigarettes…." Bates C, "Clearing the smoke or muddying the water?" Editorial, Tobacco Control, June 12, 2001. |
Given the sheer power and wealth of the international pharmaceutical conglomerates and given the political power and "respectability" of their governmental and non-governmental "partners," it may very well come to pass that TV viewers will be subjected to a whole new wrinkle in nicotine marketing:
"Honey, I forgot to go to the doctor to refill our prescription for cigarettes." Husband responds: "Well, luckily for us, there's a patch vending machine just around the corner." Hugging her husband, the wife replies: "You know, maybe we ought to forget about cigarettes. The patch is so much more convenient and so much less expensive-and we don't even have to go outside to use it."