Pharmacies Lace Lollipops with Nicotine
Hundreds of independent druggists across the U.S. are producing new smoking cessation products and sales of these items are on fire. Flavored lollipops with nicotine are being sold under brand names such as NicoStop, NicoPop and Likatine, Currently, these items are being produced with formal review by the Food and Drug Administration.
Sales of these products have yet to be quantified, but it is clear that they are growing. One supplier to pharmacists says sales of the nicotine used in lollipops increased 20-fold from 2000 to 2001. Many pharmacists also are concocting nicotine-spiked hard candy, gummy lozenges and even lip balm, selling them in stores and on the Internet.
The FDA “is looking into” the legality of the lollipops according to Brad Stone, a department spokesman.
Tobacco-control activists say the lollipops are dangerous because children can get them and end up addicted to nicotine. It is possible to buy the lollipops online with no prescription or proof of age required.
Moderator Comment: Should smoking cessation lollipops
developed by licensed pharmacists have to be approved by the FDA before they
can be sold?
The science seems clear in this case and the FDA has
said that it “is permissible” to use active ingredients, such as nicotine, in
different forms. Pharmacists are doing here what they have always done. FDA
involvement seems like an unneeded complication. [George
Anderson – Moderator]