A recent ad campaign suggesting people who resolve to give up smoking in the new year try a smokeless product instead has drawn criticism from anti-tobacco advocates.
The campaign in question is the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.'s first effort aimed at getting smokers to switch to Camel Snus, introduced in early 2009. Users stick the small, tobacco-filled pouches between their cheek and gum.
The ads appeared recently in wide-circulation magazines like Time, Sports Illustrated and People, as well as in some alternative weekly newspapers around the country. They suggest, but don't say directly, that the pouches are a way to help kick the smoking habit.
Under federal law, companies cannot claim that tobacco products work as smoking cessation products. All the ads also warn: "Smokeless tobacco is addictive."
The Food And Drug Administration, which regulates tobacco advertising, is reviewing the Reynolds ad campaign.
Anti-tobacco campaigners say the Reynolds ads aim to reorient smokers to smokeless snus to keep them from being lost as potential customers.
Besides nicotine and, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 28 cancer-causing agents, smokeless tobacco can have other ingredients that negatively impact a person's health.
Some experts do see advantages to smokeless tobacco over cigarettes. A 2007 report from the United Kingdom's Royal College of Physicians argues some smokeless tobacco products are less harmful than cigarettes, at least from the perspective of secondhand smoke.
