The Wall Street Journal reports that tobacco giant Reynolds American International is involved in talks to purchase Niconovum the Swedish manufacturer of Nicotine Replacement Therapy products. NRT is of course a popular method for tobacco cessation. At first blush this seems a truly strange union. Is RJR trying to sabotage tobacco cessation efforts? Or is this simply revealing what we have known all along about tobacco marketing? It is nicotine dependent.
"We are, then in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug effective in the relief of stress mechanisms." RJR July 17, 1963. Bates 1802.05
And if we suspect Niconovum’s/RJR’s nicotine products why then should we not be suspicious of others that profit from the sale of nicotine like Pfizer et al. Is it because we question RJR’s intent and not the drug companies that have made a huge business out of cessation products?
E cigarettes are being promoted as smoking cessation devices by everyone except the E cigarette companies. That classification would give the FDA more authority to regulate the devices, the nicotine. More than anecdotal evidence is required to show that nicotine delivery in this fashion is harmless or effective.
The best evidence that E cigarettes pose no competitive threat is demonstrated by a lack of opposition from the tobacco cartel. If tobacco companies thought nicotine vapor threatened their profit, we’d know because they would swoop down and buy the tiny businesses that are producing these vaporizers. And they may yet just as RJR is eyeballing NRT manufacturer Niconovum. In the meanwhile big tobacco is content to let E cigarettes play the spoiler for the myth of a safe cigarette. The poor will never get their fix as cheaply as the traditional cigarette and the few who can afford to switch to taking their nicotine in a vapor will reaffirm nicotine addiction as a normal part of the day. But at the end of the day as long as it contains nicotine big tobacco has nothing to lose.
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