On his Tobacco Analysis blog, Dr. Mike Siegel of the Boston University School of Public Health deconstructs a Columbus Dispatch article extolling Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). The senators want dissolvable tobacco products to be immediately pulled from the market, claiming that the products are being used to "hook youth."

Dr. Siegel writes, "There is no evidence that these products are hooking youth and creating or sustaining nicotine addiction. … If Senators Sherrod and Merkley truly want to do something to protect our nation's youth, they will have to do something about cigarettes - and I'm talking about the real ones."

"Dr. Siegel calls this 'evidence-blind' policy, which we've been seeing more and more of recently," says Dr. Gilbert Ross of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH). "This argument about protecting the kids is based on an article in Pediatrics co-written by Dr. Greg Connolly, who says that the nicotine lozenges will attract children. Of course it is possible that they might, but as Dr. Siegel points out, there is no evidence that any child has sustained harm from them. It is just an unsupported theory.

"We have to remember that there are over 40 million American adults who are addicted to cigarettes, and they basically have no way to quit right now," says ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. "We should be embracing non-combustible nicotine delivery systems. Hopefully, some smokers would use these to satisfy their craving for nicotine without returning to cigarettes. These senators say they are worried about children using these, but they completely forget to mention the potential benefits of having these available."