Smokeless Tobacco Product Looks Like Candy

Published on May 13, 2010 7:25 AM

As it is known smokeless tobaccos are as dangerous as cigarettes. However, tobacco industries continue to produce them.  And for to attract more attention, "They are packaged like mint, candy or gum," explained Dr. Mark Vecchiotti, the chief of pediatric otolaryngology at Tufts.

Most attractive are Camel's Orbs, known as The Tic Tacs of the Tobacco Industry. They're small pills that contain inside soluble tobacco with one milligram of nicotine per Orb and are mint or cinnamon tasted.

Doctors are worried that even though Camel Orbs are produced for adults, they may attract children too, only because their package."These objects look like candy to me and I consider that they'll look like candy to kids too and I’m sure that kids will put them into their mouths especially because they see that adults do the same," declared Dr. Nancy Rigotti, the director of the Tobacco Research and Treatment Center at Mass General Hospital.

A group of researchers studied the danger of Camel Orbs among children from Harvard's School of Public Heath. At the end of investigation, they found that even one Orb pill may be sufficient to sicken a young kid, but maybe 13-17 pellets could cause a very serious side effect and possible respiratory retard. "In general children between the ages of one or two are all concerning oral investigation, so any person that has children or looks after them know that they're frequently putting things in their mouths," added Dr. Vecchiotti.

David Howard, R.J. Reynolds speaker declared also in a statement: "We have taken the new steps to help warn casual using of Camel dissolvable tobacco products by all youths, involving packaging the product in more resistant packages and stamping on it 'keep out of reach of children'." But researchers said that this method is not enough for to stop children from trying these so called Tic Tacs.

Doctors also explained that they discovered that Orbs are not safe and healthy even for adults because they may conduce to swallow more tobacco than after smoking a cigarette because just like real Tic Tacs people use not just one.

Researchers concluded that this smokeless tobacco is of course less harmful than smoking only because people are not inhaling smoke which is dangerous, but such products are still exposing the mouth to tobacco, which is a lot more harmful than nicotine in cigarettes.