From the blurb in voce macho:
"New Niquitin Oral Strips are the first and only stop smoking aid in a strip. They dissolve fast, release nicotine fast, they start to relieve your urge to smoke. Fast."It's true that they are the first type of product in this country, but not the first worldwide. You see, dissolvable tobacco strips do exactly the same thing and are available in the the USA.
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| Up there, second right |
A Food and Drug Administration scientific advisory panel says dissolvable tobacco products could reduce health risks compared with smoking cigarettes. But the agency also warned the products have the potential to increase the overall number of tobacco users.
According to the report, exclusive use of dissolvable tobacco products by an individual would "greatly reduce risk" compared with regular use of cigarettes. It also could reduce population-level disease burden caused by tobacco use if the products decrease the number of people who smoke or don't start smoking.
"Based on understanding of the delivery of toxins to cigarette smokers, exclusive use of (dissolvable tobacco products) should be less hazardous than regular smoking of cigarettes now marketed in the United States," the report said.
The committee, however, concluded that the availability of dissolvable tobacco products might make people think tobacco in general is safer. Beyond anecdotal evidence, the committee said it found no information on whether dissolvable tobacco products would make cigarette smokers more likely to quit.
Most public health experts say there is no safe way to use tobacco and push for people to quit above all else. Others embrace the idea that lower-risk alternatives can improve public health, if they mean fewer people smoke.There is, of course, no evidence that they are remotely dangerous but they are required to carry the same warnings as chewing tobacco across the Atlantic.
It's still better than the situation in the UK, where they fall within the scope of the EU wide ban on oral tobacco - the same one banning snus anywhere except Sweden - which conveniently leaves the market wide open for Niquitin's medical version of the same nicotine delivery device.
Convenient, huh?
Now, just imagine for a second that there are nasty bastards within the EU who are so anti-tobacco that they believe - or have been lobbied to believe - anything nicotine-related should only be sold by Big Pharma. How do you think they would go about such a task?
Perhaps by classifying a clear and present danger to pharmaceutical profits (e-cigs) as a tobacco product - even though it clearly contains no tobacco - and therefore including it in the TPD and bringing down the mighty Goliath of the tax-funded tobacco control industry on it's ass?
Just saying.
UPDATE: Looks like my presumptions were pretty accurate:
Leak: global death cult @WHO plans to class #ecigs as tobacco, exclude industry, treat vapour as smoke, ban ads #FCTC pic.twitter.com/tyNFLWylYg
— Clive Bates (@Clive_Bates) February 4, 2014
18 comments:
There is one thing I don't understand about the whole, ecigs being a threat to Big Pharma, malarkey.
There's a lot of talk about regulation but currently, and for a while now, anyone at all can start selling ecigs. We have a client at work who sells random stuff by mail order. He decided to get in on the act and bought a few pallets of them from China. They're flying out, and it was as easy as that.
If Big Pharma feel threatened, why aren't they getting in on the act? With their financial clout they could even price smaller companies out of the market.
Why do they continue with crap that doesn't work when they could buy the entire stock of ecigs from China and brand them as an approved quit smoking aid?
What am I missing?
It occurred to me shortly ago that there's another reason they hate ecigs so much; maybe somebody else has thunk this thought but I haven't specifically read it anywhere. It's this; if ecigs are allowed, and reasonably priced, and people use them sometimes but many people still carry on using tobacco, it utterly destroys a main argument of Tobacco Temperance, which is the one that says that "people only smoke because they are nicotine addicts and can't give up".
Effectively, ecigs provide a tobacco alternative, so if people are still smoking, it can't be the nicotine "forcing them against their will" to use tobacco as a product, because they could have an ecig instead. Thus, down the pan goes the whole "we don't need to listen to your arguments defending tobacco, that's just the addiction talking" justification. Tobacco has become a purely voluntary product even to an addict.
Damn good question, Bucko, and one I've struggled with too.
The only two possibilities I can come up with are:
1) Pharma have nailed their colours to a 'quit or die' mast. E-cigs don't fit that profile. NICE now approve long-term pharma NRT as an option, so pharma happy with the status quo.
or 2) Since pharma also produce consumer products (available without a prescription) it should be a no-brainer to get into this market. But their approach to NRT has always centred on having them approved for prescription. They are still consumer products and can be bought off the shelf at Tesco, but how much better is it to be able to sell generally AND by prescription.
So, put up barriers, extinguish loads of competitors, get the product on their own turf of medicinal regulation ... then move in, buy up a player, tweak it and roll out their own version available over the counter or for walk-up cash.
That's what I'd do if I were them, anyway. ;)
The prescription thing is a good point. That helps many people get the product while the taxpayer covers the bill, an extra market that ecigs don't have.
Ians comment below is also a good one.
It still seems to me that they could corner the market and have the capital to get them classed as medical devices for prescription. They could also market them as a quit aid to be used with diminishing strenghts of nicotine.
I still think there is something more here
Someone once told me that he knew a guy in pharma who admitted that they'd love to market snus but it would ruin their reputation. I don't know how true that is, but e-cigs fall into the same nicotine enjoyment category until such time they are licensed medicinally.
A REALLY cynical person might consider that income from NRT isn't huge (in Big Pharma terms) but the supply of cancer treatments is.....
Big Pharma is always - and only - about the money: The E-cig business is not good enough for Big Pharma - there's not enough money in it. Big Pharma would never sell Stimorol gum either.
Big Pharma only sells monopoly products, because prices can be set much higher on these. Compare nicotine gum with ordinary gum, which are likely to have the same costs to the producer - in my country the price is 7£ for one day's Nicorette consume and 1£ for one day's Stimorol consum. The Nicorette price is very high because Big Pharma constantly lobbies the government for higher cigarette taxes and kicks up the Nicorette price in parallel.
Big Pharma is not a competing industry - it's a monopoly industry. It does not respond to free demand or deliver anything to a free market, they only deliver to forced markets - people are not sick and do not get injured by their own free will. And the only reason they have had any Nicorette sale is because of the smoking bans, which force smokers to use something else than tobacco.
That also explains why Big Pharma had a big hand in securing the smoking bans: They have lifted their turnover very much (use google translate):
http://dengulenegl.dk/blog/?p=224
Hard to see the "cynical" point. There's no significant diffence in the cancer ratio between smokers and non-smokers. Smokers gets diagnosed with lung cancer - non-smokers with other cancers.
And no clear evidence exists that smoking cessation eventually will lead to less cancer:
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/12/what-anti-smoking-evidence.html
Especially as rates of cancer have continued to increase whilst smoker numbers have dramatically declined over the past 4 decades.
A lot of the 'addiction' is the hand to mouth action which is why so many people put on weight when they quit or try to quit.
Yes, you still get that with ecigs, but as someone else said, with ecigs, unlike cigarettes, there is no difinitive start and finish. For many the actual lighting up is all part of the enjoyable experience, as well as the diminishing of the cigarette as you smoke it. This does not happen with ecigs/vapers. In fact, I often see vapers, in particular, puffing away like a babe on a soother.
For me, these points are exactly why ecigs and vapes just don't do it for me.
I think there's one very vital thing you have to remember, and it's the fundamental basis of selling for Big Pharma.
Big
Pharma's message for their entire industry is this: "You are SICK, and
you are going to die, UNLESS we save you from your horrible fate"
So
let's say Big Pharma uses their clout and billions to take over the
e-cig industry - and they get a whole generation of 16-year olds started
on e-cigs. They could do that.
Is their selling message going to be "You are sick and going to die, unless you start vaping?"
Now
fast-forward 10 or15 years, and a whole generation is contentedly
puffing away on e-cigs in bars, cars, libraries, everywhere - just like
the old days. People have become more sociable and less isolated, no
longer locked away in their bathrooms worshipping their stockpiles of
pills and remedies. It's a generation of young adults vaping away, with a
lot less cares in the world than their hypochondriac parents had.
What
happend to the "You are DOOMED" message, which has been constantly
promoted by Big Pharma? Is anyone paying attention to it? Not nearly as
much as before.
If Big Pharma promoted and sold e-cigs, they
might corner the market and make a fortune - but where would happen to
all their worry-wort hypochondriac clients, the ones they've so
carefully cultivated and nurtured? They've disappeared. Because all
anyone needs now is his e-cig, carrying it around like a mobile phone.
The sale of the rest of Big Pharma's products would take a nose-dive!
The whole culture of the sick and dying would be transformed - they can NOT allow that to happen.
-
I think there's one very vital thing you have to remember, and it's the fundamental basis of selling for Big Pharma.
Big
Pharma's message for their entire industry is this: "You are SICK, and
you are going to die, UNLESS we save you from your horrible fate"
So
let's say Big Pharma uses their clout and billions to take over the
e-cig industry - and they get a whole generation of 16-year olds started
on e-cigs. They could do that.
Is their selling message going to be "You are sick and going to die, unless you start vaping?"
Now
fast-forward 10 or15 years, and a whole generation is contentedly
puffing away on e-cigs in bars, cars, libraries, everywhere - just like
the old days. People have become more sociable and less isolated, no
longer locked away in their bathrooms worshipping their stockpiles of
pills and remedies. It's a generation of young adults vaping away, with a
lot less cares in the world than their hypochondriac parents had.
What
happend to the "You are DOOMED" message, which has been constantly
promoted by Big Pharma? Is anyone paying attention to it? Not nearly as
much as before.
If Big Pharma promoted and sold e-cigs, they
might corner the market and make a fortune - but where would happen to
all their worry-wort hypochondriac clients, the ones they've so
carefully cultivated and nurtured? They've disappeared. Because all
anyone needs now is his e-cig, carrying it around like a mobile phone.
The sale of the rest of Big Pharma's products would take a nose-dive!
The whole culture of the sick and dying would be transformed - they can NOT allow that to happen.
-
The ecig market is a perfect market. As Bucko notes, anyone can enter. Competition drives prices and profit sdown. Pharma only wants to operate in rigged markets, like NHS procurement and barriers to entry by excessive regulation which is expensive to comply with. Far better to get rid of ecigs than compete in a genuine market.
Meanwhile, although I've NEVER heard of a case of a schoolkid being rushed to a hospital in a coma after smoking during a lunch break, we DO have at least one case of a NicoGummyGiveAway school day having such an effect:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1200918/Boy-14-collapses-overdosing-nicotine-chewing-gum-handed-school.html
Hmmm... and here's another story, this one actually featuring the NyQuitin in the ad:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/18-chicago-students-get-sick-from-nicotine-lozenges/
Clearly something must be done. Dr. Puddlecote, is there an alternate form of medication you think should be given to these children for their playtime?
;>
MJM
P.S. I wonder... given the power of money out there... HAVE there been any actual deaths from kids ingesting such things that have been covered up with payola?
On another subject, Californian clowns conducted a study suggesting that 3rd hand smoke is as deadly as smoking. Yes, the article is rubbish, but what's really news is the comments. Anti-tobacco has jumped the shark, big time.
http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2014/02/03/study-third-hand-smoke-exposure-as-deadly-as-smoking/
Of course there is another reason why pharmaceuticals won't invest in e-cigarettes, not just because they are losing out on the nicotine replacement therapy markets, but they will also lose out on the "we can try and cure you now that you have been diagnosed with cancer, heart disease, emphysema, bad circulation....." it's more about what happens when people are ILL from smoking rather than them trying to really help in the cessation of it. Their money is made in cures and remedies, counter-productive medicines etc, once someone is ill from a smoking related illness, to the big pharmaceuticals this is cash all the way to the bank and the last thing they want the general public to do is get well, it's just no in their interests! Linda
Make that 6 decades. Smoking prevalence has been falling since 1953 in most European countries
No. If that was true Big Pharma would not have invested billions in the marketing of Nicorette products and other billions in lobbying for smoking bans. As long as Nicorette have a monopoly, and bans are in place, NRT is the real "cash all the way to the bank".
Not so with medicine for "smoking-related diseases" which only a minority of smokers and ex-smokers will ever contract - some day in old-age. NRT is the golden egg - but only as long as sales are not ruined by competition from the E-cigs.
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