VALDOSTA — For smokers looking for a sweet way to lick their habit, the newest flavor of the week is the nicotine lollipop.

Retailing for $4 and $5 a pop, the new suckers aren’t cheap, but they are apparently effective, especially for smokers with that “hand to mouth” fixation.

“Some smokers have to have something in their hand, and other products like the gum, inhaler or the patch don’t help them,” said Robert Hatton, a pharmacist at The Medicine Shoppe in Valdosta, which sells more than 100 of the lollipops each week.

Having only recently been made available in town, the lollipops are also sold locally by Barnes Health Care Services.

The lollies come in a variety of flavors, including strawberry, cherry, cappucino, cinnamon, apple and watermelon. “We have found that the tutti frutti and the lemon lime are the best at masking the nicotine flavor,” said Dana Richards, marketing representative for The Medicine Shoppe. “However, we can make a lot of different flavors depending on what the customer wants if they give us a couple of days notice.”

The recommended usage of the lollipop is to place it in your mouth when the urge to smoke hits. You leave it in your mouth until the urge passes, usually a few minutes, and then remove it and put it back in its container. One lollipop will last “several smoke breaks,” according to Richards.

Although the two and four milligram lollipops are available over the counter, the stronger six milligram version is only available with a prescription. The pops are packaged in child-proof containers and are not sold to minors.

“We keep them behind the counter, and if someone under 18 tried to buy them, we would not sell to them,” said Richards.

Hatton said the pops are compounded at the store for the individual and are not mass manufactured by the drug companies. “We talk to the individual and find out how many packs they smoke in a day and design the dosage accordingly.”

Customer Diana Sayre said although she herself has never smoked, her mother has been using the lollipops for several weeks with great success.

“My mother has been a chain smoker for 45 years, and she was desperate to quit. She’d tried everything. And then my daughter, who lives here, had heard about these lollipops, and we called the pharmacy up in Michigan where my mother lives and they sold them there, too.”

Sayre said her mother tried them and has not smoked in six weeks. She has already started weaning herself off the pops.

The lollipops are sugar free and are made with artificial sweeteners, specifically for diabetics. Pharmacy Technician Kim Stewart, who does much of the compounding, said she has tried the pops, although she is not a smoker.

“They taste sweet, but then you get that nicotine tingle.” She said you would not mistake them for a regular lollipop after trying one.

While the lollipops themselves are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, all of the ingredients that go into them have been FDA approved, according to Richards.

She said the lollipops are a better alternative as a smoking cessation method than some of the other methods as it has no side effects. “The gum can have too much medication for some people, the inhaler can irritate your throat, and the patch gives a continuous dosage, which may be too much for some smokers. The pops let you control the nicotine, and you can use them whenever you have the urge to smoke.”

Hatton said no matter how effective any smoking cessation method may be, “Nothing works if the person isn’t ready to quit.”



To contact Business Editor Kay Harris, please call 244-3400, ext. 280.