As an occassional smoker, I resent that the FDA has in recent times blocked attempts by manufacturers to sell non-tobacco products that contain nicotine. Examples of these are nicotine lollipops and nicotine water.
Why? Because this appointed, unelected quasi-legislative body says that they are “unsafe”.
Yet tobacco (a nicotine containing product that has been proven to be unsafe) is sold freely to adults throughout the nation.
Why are people who crave a nicotine buzz forced to either smoke cigarettes or buy very expensive patches? Why can’t they take a third or fourth alternative to get a buzz without FDA agents storming their business, guns drawn, and forcefully confiscating these nicotine lollipops because they are “unsafe”?
Well how about because they are unsafe? Nicotine is a very powerful drug, affecting the heart, the nervous system, the kidneys, the liver, etc. etc.
Our society has decided that it would allow tobacco to be used. It delivers nicotine, but in a form where it is nearly impossible to take a lethal dose of it. Few can smoke or chew enough tobacco to cause serious acute harm because of the low nicotine content.
Now purify it and put it in a lollipop. Or in water or soda. You have an instant recipe for a delivery system which can give a toxic dose quite easily. And kids will be even more susceptible to this effect.
The gum and patches have been designed to deliver lower nicotine doses, and have been extensively tested for their safety. Same with the nicotine inhalers and nasal sprays. That’s one of the FDA’s jobs, to regulate the safety of products which deliver drugs which are used internally.
I’ve only seen two cases of acute nicotine intoxication in my career. One was a frat boy who on a dare drank the contents of a spittoon, the other was a guy who had never used tobacco before, and literally plastered his body with nicotine patches, and smoked a cigar. Both were quite ill, and developed rather dangerous arrhythmias.
Qadgop has some good points, though based on what I’ve heard it would be difficult to O.D. on nicotine through nicotine water.
But do we really want to make it easier for people (including children) to get access to this drug (for example, kids smoking draw adult attention that kids slurping lollipops or drinking water would not)? Having an increased population addicted to nicotine is in no one’s interest, except possibly the manufacturers and tobacco companies. Seems to me that the F.D.A. is doing its job on this one.
And while the F.D.A. is not perfect, I would be far more uncomfortable with it existing as an (ugh) elected body, swaying in the wind with every blast from special interest groups.
Not to mention being ferociously addictive.
In my not-so-humble opinion, I feel that if we have to make nicotine available to the general public, the very worst form it could be in is cigarettes. When you take a puff from a lit cigarette, you’re inhaling not only nicotine into your lungs, but also a huge array of tobacco-combustion products, many of which are carcinogenic.
Nicotine gum (which has no tobacco by-products), chewing tobacco (which is not burned and therefore doesn’t have any of the combustion-product carcinogens*), and even cigars and pipes (whose smoke is not inhaled and is therefore not nearly as addictive) are all safer nicotine delivery systems than cigarettes are.
[sub]*) True, the conventional flame-flue curing process for tobacco does produce one or two carcinogens of its own. However, there are air-curing and microwave-curing techniques that do not produce these carcinogens, and which could therefore be employed to make chewing tobacco completely non-carcinogenic.[/sub]
Why wouldn’t they allow nicotine water? For one thing, it’s very friendly to smokers and non-smokers alike. When you can’t smoke by city ordinance, or when smoking would be impolite to others around you, you could drink the water. Also, it would be a low cost alternative to having to use those patches and gums to quit. Maybe they turned it down to protect the revenues of the pharmaceutical companies?
And the addictive power of nicotine water? I’m skeptical. My personal tobacco addiction is more about the oral fixation than about the drug nicotine. I was a snacker throughout high school, and thankfully found a zero-calorie replacement for my oral fixation. (I know, I know, insert joke here.) I don’t think the water would catch on. It may have the nicotine, but it has none of the other things that make smoking attractive to people:
1.) It isn’t “cool”. Spokesmen for tobacco include cowboys and shade-wearing camels. Spokesmen for water include Lisa Kudrow.
2.) You can’t duck out for a glass of water at work.
3.) You can’t blow water-rings.
4.) More effective at a Pink Floyd laser show: tobacco smoke, or everyone spitting water mist into the air?
5.) Your parents want you to drink 6 glasses of water a day.
A little off topic, but apparently if you fill a glass of water, put a cigar in it to soak for a few hours, then drink the water, you’ll get a near lethal dose.
—My personal tobacco addiction is more about the oral fixation than about the drug nicotine.—
Right… because other objects you could stick in your mouth and suck on are just too expensive, compartively, ever since they upped the tax to 7$ a straw.
I never said it was entirely the oral fixation, just largely so. I know cigarettes replaced my snacking fixation, so it seems to me that this was indeed a large part of it. I think most of the rest is habit. The amount of my tobacco addiction that I would accredit to the actual drug nicotine is pretty low.
Note that many people are able to switch from full-flavors to lights or even ultralights with no corresponding increase in the number of cigs they smoke per day. If it were really all about the nicotine, this wouldn’t be the case.
But then, I’ve learned not to trust people’s own judgements on what’s going on with things like nicotine. I know when I smoked, I was surprised that there wasn’t some sort of “addiction” feeling that compelled me to smoke more. And yet, for some reason, I just ended up smoking more. It was very easy to pretend that it wasn’t the drug… but what else could explain continuing to do it against all other interests (especially financial).
—Note that many people are able to switch from full-flavors to lights or even ultralights with no corresponding increase in the number of cigs they smoke per day. If it were really all about the nicotine, this wouldn’t be the case.—
Not necessarily: if it’s about just getting some at certain intervals (hitting that brain barrier of addiction) rather than a certain amount. It depends on how much is needed to trigger the same addictive effects, and whether that changes much or not as tolerance builds.