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Tobacco Candy Poisoning Kids, Study Shows
Filed under: In The News, Research Reveals: Big Kids, Research Reveals: Tweens
Smoking isn't the only way to get a nicotine fix. Credit: zombieite, Flikr
Guess what, kids? Smoking may be bad for you, but now you can get your tobacco in candy form!
That's the message that seems to be coming from the tobacco companies these days. The latest in nicotine delivery systems are flavored products that contain tobacco and look a lot like breath mints or candy. They may taste good, but they can be life threatening for children who mistake them for a harmless treat, according to a new study published in the May issue of Pediatrics.
The study says accidental ingestion of tobacco products is a major cause of child poisonings, particularly for kids younger than 6.Researchers from Harvard's School of Public Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Northern Ohio Poison Control Center sorted through information from 61 poison control centers gathered between 2006 and 2008, and found more than 13,700 reports of children eating tobacco products -- usually cigarettes, but increasingly smokeless tobacco products.
While kids younger than 1 will put anything in their mouths -- hence the high rate of cigarette ingestion -- older children are somewhat more discerning and go for smokeless tobacco products, such as sweetened chewable tobacco products, Greg Connolly, the study's lead author and a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, tells ParentDish.
Last year, a new tobacco mint called Orbs, which bears the Camel logo and resembles a Tic Tac, was introduced, and other similar products are in the pipeline. These tobacco candies contain much higher levels of nicotine than cessation chewing gums such as Nicorette, Connolly tells ParentDish.
"This is a ticking time bomb," he says. "Nicotene is not sugar."
Not only do the mints pose a danger to young children who could poison themselves, but also to adolescents who could become addicted to nicotine through the mints, Connolly says.
He says parents and pediatricians need to be educated about the danger of these products; the study calls on public health authorities to take a closer look at these products to determine the appropriate regulatory approach.
Related: FDA Fears Kids Will Like Dissolvable Tobacco
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
6-12-2010 @ 4:11PM
Michael J. McFadden said...13,700 reports of kids "ingesting tobacco products" was noted, but despite the fact that the headline say "tobacco candy POISONING kids" you 'll note that not a single death was noted.
Rather ineffective for a "poison" eh? Meanwhile in the same period how many kids were poisoned TO actual death by aspirin?
Two other notable things here:
(1) The picture accompanying the article of "Lucky Lights" candy is of a product that contains NO tobacco or nicotine: it's either sugar candy or bubblegum and has been packaged and sold that way since the 1950s. It's about as "dangerous" as M&Ms and a lot less dangerous than marshmallows or hotdogs (both of which have choked kids to death.)
(2) Of those 13,700 "poisonings" a lot must have been from the products like Orbs highlighted in the article, right? Heh... no. Wrong. You'll notice no figure is given. That's because about 98% of the "poisonings" occur at home and concern cigarettes. The last two percent occur outside the home (Although from the screams about needing bans around playgrounds, beaches, and parks you might mistakenly think it was two HUNDRED percent rather than two percent!) and also mainly concern cigarettes.
In reality, given the wild desires of the antismoking lobby out there and their almost bottomless resources, it's virtually certain that not a single child has been killed or even significantly harmed by the products the article focuses on.
Now, in fairness, I *do* agree these candy orbs AND the nicotine gummy things DO present a much greater danger to children than cigarettes. Just several months ago a 14 year old schoolkid was rushed to the hospital and almost died after an antismoking group handed out enormous amounts of nicotine gum to students during an event: this kid stuck 40 pieces in his mouth.
The antismoking lobby with their bans and taxes have caused far more harm than good to our society in many different ways, and it continues to eat up literally hundreds of millions of dollars out of our tax pockets while doing so.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
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