Currently viewing the tag: "Stonewall"

Hey have you heard of Ariva and Stonewall tablets—dissolvable tobacco products that are consumed like breath mints? Just right for those moments when you can’t sneak a smoke, like during business meetings, transcontinental flights, or Thanksgiving dinner. Why you could even bypass the post-climactic smoke by popping a nic-o-mint during coitus. Ariva and Stonewall smoke-free tobacco products are manufactured and marketed by Star Scientific, Inc. out of Petersburg, Va., and are made from finely milled tobacco. They are essentially like breath mints with cool flavors like wintergreen, natural, and java. Yum.

The company says the products are marketed to adults solely, but the FDA ain’t buying it. Representatives for the Food and Drug Administration say they worry about how much kids will be attracted to this product. With brightly colored packaging and candy-like appearance, these babies are perfect for sucking on…in class. Woohoo!!!

Well the The FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) is requiring Star Scientific and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., maker of Camel cigarettes to provide their research and marketing information on how people under age 26 perceive and use the products. Exercising new power to regulate tobacco that the FDA was granted in June, the CTP also requested research on misuse of the products, including potential accidental nicotine poisoning. Regulators also want a summary of user demographics, including at what age “tobacco-naive consumers” start using the products.

Ha!!! Those crazy tobacco companies are at it again, and who can blame them? With a cash crop so tied into our country’s rich history, why would the industry lay down like whimpering dogs at the hands of the social police when there’s plenty of profit to be made. If tobacco was good enough for our Native American ancestors, dammit, it’s good enough for your children.

I’m not posting this piece as stand against the tobacco industry, because I think that there will always be harmful substances to tempt us at every turn. I just want to make people aware of what’s out there. If you want a higher probability of your children staying smoke-free—not dissolvable tobacco product smoke-free, but truly smoke-free–then don’t smoke, period. They might pick up the habit anyway, but you certainly don’t have to help them along.

As far as the future of tobacco is concerned, well I just love innovation, so I’m amused at the ingenuity. But as for it’s utility? Ha…I’m just waiting for the coffee-enema-beer-bong to make its debut.

Copyright © 2013 Dr. Nick Campos - All Rights Reserved.