Kids Confuse Camel Orbs with Candy

A survey in Virginia found that 39 percent of youths under age 18 thought that the new Camel Orbs smokeless-tobacco product was candy or gum, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported May 7.

Further, 28 percent of those under age 18 said they would try the smokeless-tobacco product based on its packaging.

The survey by the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth asked about 1,400 people to identify a variety of products based on images of their packaging, including mints, gum, and the new class of smokeless-tobacco products. Camel Orbs are dissolvable tobacco pellets that contain nicotine.

Foundation marketing director Danny Saggese said such products pose a “significant risk to youth and raises the possibility of them not only using these products, but using them in places where smoking is now prohibited, and potentially becoming nicotine addicts.”

David Howard, a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds, which makes Camel Orbs, said the pellets “are clearly tobacco products. Their sale is age-restricted. It is illegal to sell them to minors. The packages carry the same warnings as other smokeless tobacco products.”