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Excerpts from Tobacco Candy Considered

Pioneer Press at Parker & Waichman at http://800lawinfo.com/articles/article2345.cfm

ST. PAUL -- A major cigarette maker once considered making tobacco-based lollipops and other candies with nicotine at the same time the industry claimed it was trying to make smoking unattractive to kids, a formerly secret document shows.

The idea was among several novel tobacco product proposals to emerge during an October 1992 brainstorming session by executives at Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., according to a memo quoted by the Saint Paul Pioneer Press on Sunday.

Others included a wafer bread product, ``foam tobacco; sponge or cotton candy like product,'' a fruit roll-up, tea, a paper stick resembling a lollipop, a ``chew stick,'' tobacco spice to sprinkle on food, a ``tobacco-derived salted snack'' and a tobacco pill.

The memo's author wrote that the meeting's participants were searching for a ``socially acceptable'' tobacco product, one that contained nicotine but had a ``positive image.'' The author also said it should be smoke-free, odorless, easy, ``pleasant'' to use and have ``satisfaction readily controlled by user.''

Opponents of the tobacco industry said the memo may provide the Food and Drug Administration with a powerful piece of evidence that the tobacco industry markets nicotine as a drug, and that the industry therefore should be regulated.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month agreed to rule on whether the FDA can regulate tobacco.

John Banzhaf, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health, said the new-found memo ``is one of the strongest pieces of evidence supporting the FDA's position that they (tobacco companies) intended nicotine as a drug.''

``What they're basically talking about here is `How do we cram nicotine into people?''' Banzhaf told the Pioneer Press. ``They're talking about how it has to be at certain levels, and they even use the word `controlled,' and that is at the heart of the FDA's case.''

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