Tobacco industry keeps smokers addicted, speaker says

Warner, a public health professor from the University of Michigan, told about 30 people at the University of Arizona Cancer Center Kiewit Auditorium yesterday that the tobacco industry impacts the economy more than most people realize.

"It is a fact of life that there's no one in this room who doesn't use a tobacco company's product," said Warner, adding that many tobacco companies make goods other than cigarettes and chewing tobacco.

Some tobacco companies produce products geared toward smokers yearning to quit, he said. The products create "an emerging market for long-term nicotine maintenance," Warner added.

According to Warner, people addicted to nicotine are only prolonging their addictions by using smoking substitutes.

"The tobacco industry's innovations are an attempt to keep nicotine alive and well," he said.

Warner said that although attempts to market tobacco toothpaste and soap as smoking substitutes have failed, the future of the industry seems to be expanding.

If the FDA approves them, consumers can soon expect nicotine lozenges and lollipops on market shelves, he said.

Warner managed to elicit a laugh from audience members when he said, "the next generation (of products) will be a nicotine suppository... 'nicorectum.'"

The future of tobacco companies hinges on responses to a changing market - ranging from an unfettered free market to the gradual phasing out of nicotine altogether, he said.

Warner added that the pharmaceutical industry needs to "drop the pretense that the nicotine business is to help people quit."

The industry needs to "accept (the idea of) long-term nicotine maintenance" and reject the notion that tobacco supplements will always work, he said.

Scott Leischow, UA associate professor of public health, said he was pleased with Warner's message.

"The reason why we asked Dr. Warner (to speak) is because the implications of new medications to help people quit smoking involve policy change as well as behavior change," he said.

A number of students attended the event, including physiology senior Brett Gordon, who was there to fulfill a class assignment.

Gordon said the lecture was "amazing," and said he was glad he came.

"It was very factual in a conversational way," he said. "He (Warner) is an expert in his field."

Warner said it is important for students to learn about the tobacco industry.

"A lot of students (at the university) smoke," he said. "One-third of undergraduates who smoke will die as a result of their smoking."

According to the Arizona Tobacco Information Network, Warner's research has been presented in more than 150 professional publications, and he is the recipient of the 1997 Excellence in Research Award from the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Warner has spoken to the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. He currently serves as a chairman of a tobacco control board.

His presentation was a part of the Prevention Lecture Series held the first and third Thursdays of the month throughout the fall semester.

It was presented via video conference to Arizona Health Science Center students in Phoenix.

Erin Mahoney can be reached via e-mail at Erin.Mahoney@wildcat.arizona.edu.