LOS ANGELES — Tobacco company rep David Howard waxes enthusiastic when he talks about a brand new product his employer, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., has developed: a pellet of finely cured tobacco, binders and flavoring that dissolves in the mouth in 10 minutes.
Under test market in two U.S. c
ities — Denver and Charlotte, N.C. — Camel Orbs will join two dissolvable tobacco lozenges already on the market if it graduates to broader distribution. And Howard is optimistic it will.
“These products provide smokers with an option to enjoy the pleasure of nicotine without bothering others,” Howard said. “No secondhand smoke. No spitting. No cigarette butt.”
Dissolvable tobacco consists of small pieces of compressed, finely ground tobacco powder, binders and flavorings that are shaped into pellets, sticks or strips. When placed in the mouth, they dissolve within minutes, providing a nicotine hit.
The tobacco industry says that the products contain far fewer cancer-causing chemicals such as tobacco-specific nitrosamines and are a “harm reduction” strategy that, like electronic cigarettes, might help people turn to less risky tobacco habits or eventually quit smoking.
But public health officials and anti-smoking advocates fear that the products will help initiate a new generation of smokers. The flavoring and packaging appeal to children, they argue, and teenagers will gravitate toward a product they can easily hide.
Today, the Food and Drug Administration will take up the issue with an advisory committee hearing on the effect of dissolvable tobacco products on public health.
“Tobacco companies are always one step ahead of the sheriff,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, one of several senators who asked the FDA to review the products. “They have found ways to evade the rules and regulations and public health warnings.”
The first dissolvable tobacco product, a lozenge called Ariva, debuted in 2001. But in the last year the number of products on sale or in test marketing has jumped and major tobacco companies have entered the arena. Reynolds is market-testing two other products, Camel Strips and Camel Sticks, in addition to Camel Orbs. Philip Morris is test marketing a dissolvable tobacco stick.
At the same time, use of smokeless tobacco — snuff, chew, electronic cigarettes and, increasingly, dissolvable tobacco — is growing at a rate of about 7 percent per year, according to a 2010 report by Research and Markets, an international market research and data company.
In some states, use of smokeless tobacco products among men is almost as high as the national prevalence of cigarette smoking among adults, which stands at 20.8 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Across the U.S., 7 percent of U.S. adult males use smokeless tobacco, according to the CDC.
Use among kids is growing, too. According to a 2010 survey by Monitoring the Future, an annual nationwide study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 8.5 percent of 12th-graders said they’d used a smokeless tobacco product in the last 30 days compared with 6.7 percent in 2003.
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