Tobacco Lozenges In The Works At Star Scientific
04/19/01
Chewing, spitting, puffing are all actions associated with tobacco. But sucking?
A sucker with nicotine content may, to the chagrin of anti-tobacco advocates, be coming to a tobacco shop or convenience store near you.
Executives at Chester, Va.-based Star Scientific Inc. (STSI) - Chief Financial Officer Christopher Miller and Vice President of Sales and Marketing David Dean - confirm a "hard tobacco product" is in development at its Star Tobacco & Pharmaceuticals Inc. unit. But a launch date has not been set and because of that, a company official says it is premature to discuss details of the product.
Nonetheless, Product Alert, a trade publication that tracks new product announcements, reports in its March 26 edition that Star Tobacco will introduce Cigaless Tobacco Lozenges in a 20-count blister pack. Star executives denied the lozenge was called Cigaless but would not say what brand name is in the works. . .
It is unclear how Star Tobacco will position its product in the marketplace, but if early reports that the lozenges will be sold in blister packs are correct, such packaging usually carries medicinal connotations.
This brings up the prickly issue of government regulation. Anti-tobacco forces, like the Tobacco Products Liability Project, see tobacco lozenges as a drug.
Cigarettes
