Nicotine water for smokers could hook kids

By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY

May 23, 2002

A bottled water mixed with nicotine may soon be hitting drug and convenience-store shelves nationwide, and anti-smoking activists question its safety and potential for addicting children.

Nico Water, to be sold in $2 half-liter bottles beginning next month, is the latest in a string of new tobacco products that has included candy-flavored cigarettes and nicotine lollipops. It looks and tastes like regular water.

The product's Web site touts it as a "safe nicotine drink for smokers trying to quit and smokers prohibited from smoking" in restaurants, offices and airplanes. "It takes away the desire for a cigarette, and you don't have to feel like a second-class citizen or leper anymore," says Timothy Owens, CEO of Quick Test Five, the California-based manufacturer. "No one ever died of secondhand water."

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