Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Decries Supposed Fast-Tracking of Safer Alternatives to Cigarettes But Says Nothing About FDA's Inaction on Real Cigarettes

The FDA is planning to fast-track applications for the marketing of nicotine pouches, according to Reuters. Nicotine pouches are much safer alternatives to real tobacco cigarettes. They contain no tobacco, involve no combustion, and do not even involve inhalation. The FDA has already approved Zyn nicotine pouches after concluding that they are appropriate for the protection of the public's health because they are much safer than cigarettes and may help smokers quit. The FDA wrote:

"Among several key considerations, the agency’s evaluation showed that, due to substantially lower amounts of harmful constituents than cigarettes and most smokeless tobacco products, such as moist snuff and snus, the authorized products pose lower risk of cancer and other serious health conditions than such products. The applicant also provided evidence from a study showing that a substantial proportion of adults who use cigarette and/or smokeless tobacco products completely switched to the newly authorized nicotine pouch products."  

In response to the revelation that the FDA is going to speed up review of these potentially life-saving products, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids complained and accused the FDA of taking "shortcuts." The Campaign is quoted as stating: "There should be no shortcuts when it comes to our kids’ health."

The Rest of the Story

Let's examine how much of a "shortcut" the FDA is taking in reviewing nicotine pouches. According to statute, the FDA has 180 days to review any application to introduce a new nicotine product into the market. However, the typical application is currently taking years, rather than months, to review and thousands of products have not even received a decision yet. Zyn took five years to be reviewed. So to call a quicker review a "shortcut" is disingenuous. Improving the review time so that it doesn't take years for a potentially much safer cigarette alternative to be approved is not a shortcut to harm kids' health, but an appropriate (and legally required) step to more quickly move products onto the market that can help smokers quit.

Tellingly, while decrying these supposed "shortcuts" with the review of much safer nicotine products, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids has said nothing about the FDA's de facto approval of deadly tobacco cigarettes. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids did not call for the removal of deadly cigarettes from the market, nor did it even call for safety standards that could make these products less hazardous.

For some reason, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is obsessed with getting safer alternatives to cigarettes off the market so that real deadly cigarettes have no competition in the marketplace, which will obviously drive up cigarette consumption. 

I never thought I would see this. A supposed anti-smoking organization pushing to protect the cigarette market by keeping safer alternative products off the market!

Why is Philip Morris International, But Not Anti-Tobacco Groups, Urging Smokers to Quit by Switching to Much Safer Products

Taylor Millard has written a very nice piece at Inside Sources which reports the results of a new survey showing that a tragically low percentage of physicians are providing smokers with the facts about less harmful alternatives to smoking. This he attributes to the failure of the FDA as well as anti-tobacco organizations to endorse harm reduction, but instead to take a prohibition approach. As Millard notes: "Advocates for moving smokers to pouches and other products are getting pushback from activist groups that support a total-prohibition approach to tobacco and nicotine. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a prohibitionist organization, denounced the FDA’s decision to authorize the marketing of Zyn nicotine pouch products in January." I'll let the piece speak for itself, but merely note the irony that Philip Morris, but not the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids or other anti-tobacco groups, is encouraging smoking cessation by switching to much safer alternatives. The health groups seem perfectly content to have the 28 million current smokers in the United States continue smoking if they are unable to quit using drugs.