24-07-06, 22:15
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Something new ...
Interesting. 
Quote:
Nicotine in a bottle on its way to Canada
Updated Mon. Jul. 24 2006 12:55 PM ET
Canadian Press
TORONTO -- Canadian smokers may soon have a new alternative to lighting up a cigarette to soothe their need for nicotine -- and it comes in a bottle.
Nic Lite, a lemon-flavoured, water-based nicotine drink that contains four milligrams of organic nicotine -- equivalent to the amount of the drug found in two cigarettes -- may soon be landing a spot on store shelves on this side of the border.
In a statement released in June, the makers of Nic Lite said they plan to roll out the product in more than 50 U.S. airports, targeting nictoine-addicted airline passengers facing the agony of smoke-free flights.
"We attempted to find other products that might have the same biological effect on people to help them when they can't smoke, or in our case, when they can't smoke and shouldn't smoke,'' said Joseph Knight, CEO of the California-based Nico Worldwide Inc., the makers of Nic Lite.
"We tried a lot of different product combinations and herbs and things, and the only thing that really works is the nicotine molecule itself.''
Knight said his company has filed an application to Health Canada to bring the product to Canada.
"We're hoping that in the next two to three months we would have our clearances in place,'' Knight said in a phone interview from Oxnard, Calif.
The product is being touted as a way to cope with smoking bans, which proves timely for Ontario and Quebec where enclosed workplaces and public places went smoke-free on May 31.
Health Canada spokesman Paul Duchesne said the product would be labelled as a natural health product but isn't approved for sale in Canada.
"Health Canada will only authorize for sale those products which it deems of high quality and safe and effective for over-the-counter use,'' Duchesne wrote in an email to The Canadian Press.
Nico Worldwide Inc. may have been dealt a blow in distributing the product in the United States. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration told the company in June that its product doesn't meet the definition of a dietary supplement.
The company had cited a 1993 New England of Journal of Medicine article which stated that nicotine is a naturally occurring compound in many vegetables including cauliflower, eggplant and tomatoes, to support its dietary supplement claim.
"The mere presence of nicotine in foods . . . without any evidence that these foods were promoted for their nicotine content does not constitute `marketing' nicotine as a food or dietary supplement,'' wrote Vasilios Frankos of the FDA's dietary supplements programs division.
Knight said the FDA originally approved Nic Lite in 2004 and that his company's lawyers plan to meet with the government agency in Washington.
Some experts are questioning how effective Nic Lite is in its delivery of nicotine.
Even nicotine replacement therapies such as the patch and gum don't transmit nicotine to the brain as quickly as a cigarette, said Joanna Cohen, director of research and training for the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit.
"Nicotine water you have to ingest, it has to go into your stomach, you have to absorb whatever there is in there, and it's probably quite dilute, and then eventually it's going to have to get your brain.''
Cohen said she doubts nicotine water is the ideal way for a quick nicotine hit.
"That wouldn't be your method of choice if you want to help to curb a craving,'' she said. "You'd want something a bit faster.''
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