Illinois Legeslators Dismiss Smokeless Tobacco Theory

Jan Johnson of CASAA shared an article and video from ABC channel 20 entitled Legislators Dismiss Smokeless Tobacco Theory on the SnusCentral Facebook page.  What we have here are rational arguments for the use of smokeless tobacco and snus on current smokers who won’t/can’t quit.  The response?  Knee jerk dismissal of the idea as a Big Tobacco profit ploy and of course, the tailored response of how this will affect “the children”.

If you want to talk about profit ploys, Big Pharma has apparently convinced FDA to allow long-term use of their overpriced gums and patches since short term use fails 93% of the time.  In other words, Big Pharma will be able to double and triple their product sales through use of products with only a 7% success rate by letting nicotine addicts pay for and use them longer.

As for “the children”, since it is and has been illegal to sell tobacco to minors for decades, I’m dismissing that entire concept.  The problem isn’t the children, its the parents who smell cigarette smoke on their kids clothes and do nothing.  The problem is adults; such as law enforcement,  who see groups of minors smoking all the time and do (or can do) nothing; whether it be cigarettes and now marijuana.

The problem is legislators more interested in appearing to do something then actually taking action.  The problem is that our health “experts” are more interested in protecting Big Pharma than protecting the nation’s nicotine addicted.  The reason?  Just follow the money.

As was testified to, the smokefree tobacco solution is designed to offer (in the case of Swedish snus) an alternate to CURRENT nicotine addicted adult smokers which is 98% less harmful to them than continuing to smoke.

The kids can just go to Walmart or the like.  Nicotine gum is sitting with no security next to the cold medicines.  Kids can just cut the box and walk out with enough nicotine gum in their pockets to stuff their mouth full.  There are plenty of fruit and mint flavors to entice the tastebuds of any child.

Eighteen year old high school students could legally buy boxes of nicotine gum and deal them like drugs to minors.   Its easier to buy nicotine gum than it is sudafed today, for goodness sake!  

The reason there is no nicotine gum crisis among teens is the same reason nicotine gum stops virtually no one from smoking.

Big Pharma so-called smoking cessation products don’t work regardless of how long you use them; a 93% failure rate makes that pretty clear.  The fact that kids don’t bother with nicotine gum and adult smokers are still smoking illustrates just how undesirable, ineffective, and useless nicotine gum or gum based products really are.

Again, follow the money.  Big Pharma is the obscene profit winner in this case and at the expense of the health and lives of 46 million American smokers.

[Larry Waters, SnusCentral.org]