Cigarette Company Test-Markets Dissolvable Tobacco Lozenges

Source from:  USA Today 08/04/2011

Charlotte, in the heart of tobacco country, is one of two U.S. cities where a tobacco company is test-marketing a new product: bite-sized, dissolvable tobacco lozenges, The Charlotte Observer reports. The new Camel Orbs, also being rolled out in Denver, are the industry's response to the annual 3% to 4% annual decline in American sales of cigarettes. Reynolds-American, based in Winston-Salem, offers the product in orbs, sticks or strips. The newspaper quotes Reynolds spokesman David Howard as saying the products, which contain less nicotine than cigarettes, meet a "societal expectation." "There's no secondhand smoke, no spitting and no cigarette butt litter," he says. The Camel Orbs package does carry a warning label: "This product can cause mouth cancer." Enditem