Article Text
Abstract
Background While fruit, candy and alcohol characterising flavours are not allowed in cigarettes in the USA, other flavoured tobacco products such as smokeless tobacco (ST) continue to be sold. We investigated tobacco manufacturers' use of flavoured additives in ST products, the target audience(s) for flavoured products, and marketing strategies promoting products by emphasising their flavour.
Methods Qualitative analysis of internal tobacco industry documents triangulated with data from national newspaper articles, trade press and internet.
Results Internally, flavoured products have been consistently associated with young and inexperienced tobacco users. Internal studies confirmed that candy-like sweeter milder flavours (eg, mint, fruit) could increase appeal to starters by evoking a perception of mildness, blinding the strong tobacco taste and unpleasant mouth feel; or by modifying nicotine delivery by affecting product pH.
Discussion Similar to cigarettes, flavoured ST is likely to encourage novices to start using tobacco, and regulations limiting or eliminating flavours in cigarettes should be extended to include flavoured ST products.
- Tobacco industry documents
- Non-cigarette tobacco products
- Tobacco industry
- Advertising and Promotion
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
Contributors GK collected the data and led the writing. PML supervised the study, obtained funding, and contributed to the data analysis and writing. Both authors conceptualised the paper, critically revised the manuscript and approved the final article and are responsible for the content.
Funding This research was supported by the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health (grant R01-CA141661).
Disclaimer The content of this article is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement This study is an analysis of previously secret tobacco industry documents, all of which are freely available to the public at the Truth Tobacco Documents Library at https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/.