FDA to Weigh Safety of Canadian Prescriptions, Tobacco Lozenges, Strips

Jan 26
07:36

2012

Remcel Mae P. Canete

Remcel Mae P. Canete

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Specialists worry candy-like Canadian drugs could put kids at risk for nicotine addiction, poisoning.

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Specialists worry candy-like  Canadian drugs  could put kids at risk for nicotine addiction,FDA to Weigh Safety of Canadian Prescriptions, Tobacco Lozenges, Strips Articles poisoning. 

"If you wanted to design a product that would appeal to youth and addict younger adolescents and adults to nicotine, this would be it," said Dr. Jonathan Winickoff, a pediatrician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "These products are designed to look like a candy and addict the user permanently." 

"If children are already ingesting cigarettes, we cannot doubt that they will ingest dissolvable tobacco that is specifically designed to taste good," Winickoff said. "Just because they smell like chocolate or mint and look safe, they contain nicotine and are potentially harmful for adolescents and could start a lifetime of nicotine addiction. Parents of young children need to be aware that these products have the potential to cause a serious overdose."

"We could consider capping the amount of nicotine in each piece so you could eliminate or drastically reduce potential to cause a fatal nicotine overdose if the entire package was consumed," he said. 

"You can sneak them into a classroom," said Dr. Lee Beers, a pediatrician at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. "This increases the potential for early tobacco adoption and increasing levels of addiction. There doesn't really seem to be any reason to have tobacco in a format that is much more easily ingestible and with quite a few downsides, particularly when think about children and adolescents. Children can and will get into anything even if the packages are childproof," she said.  At this point, if lung problems occur one of the leading medical treatments is to  buy Advair , which tried and tested, and completely safe. 

Dr. Thomas Glynn, director of cancer science and trends at the American Cancer Society, said there are many unknowns about dissolvable tobacco products. "At this point, we don't know the full range of what is in them," he said. "I don't see any potential in these dissolvable products other than to keep people smoking."  In lieu, Canadian drugstore  always reminds their customers to store deceiving meds properly.