Ken Wassum, Senior Product Manager, Tobacco:

Bill, a smoker, walks into a RiteAid because he is out of cigarettes. He has wanted to quit for a long time and today might be the day. He looks around and sees the wall of cigarettes behind the counter, but also sees boxes of nicotine patches. He asks the clerk how much these cost and is told $35. He checks his wallet, sighs, and says to the clerk, “Give me a pack of Winstons please.”  The clerk says, “$5.25 please.” Bill has his daily supply of nicotine now – in its most deadly form.

This scene plays itself out many times daily across the US. Why? A smoker can buy a daily supply of nicotine, in its deadliest form, called a pack of cigarettes, for a few bucks in just about any store. But, a smoker cannot buy a day’s supply of nicotine, in a very safe form, called nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). Instead, the smoker has to ante up 6 or 7 times the price of a pack of cigarettes to buy nicotine patches, nicotine gum, or nicotine lozenge, and he must go to a store with a pharmacy as well.

Hopefully you find this absurd. I do! I’m sure Bill does, and most people who try to help Americans quit their deadly addiction to smoking do too. So why can’t a smoker buy a day’s supply of nicotine patches, nicotine gum, or nicotine lozenges. The answer is found in three small letters -- FDA. This is the Food and Drug Administration, and the restriction of package sizes of NRT is a legacy of the 1990’s.

Now if you do the math you will find that in most states, the price of a nicotine patch, which is one day’s supply of nicotine, costs less than a pack of cigarettes. The same holds true for nicotine gum and nicotine lozenges. The problem is that you cannot buy a single patch, or 12 pieces of gum, or 12 lozenges. Instead you have to buy at least a week’s supply at a time and many smokers cannot afford to fork out that much money, or are unwilling to.

Fortunately, some of us are trying to change this. A group of us who work to help smokers quit their deadly addiction to smoking have crafted a carefully worded Citizen’s Petition and submitted it to the FDA. We are hoping that this petition, along with comments from the public (that’s you!) will help to persuade the FDA to relax restrictions on package size and store availability of nicotine patches, gum, and lozenges.

Maybe the next time Bill (or you or someone you love and care about) walks into the store he can walk out with a day’s supply of nicotine that won’t kill him.