PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Catherine L Jo
AU  - John W Ayers
AU  - Benjamin M Althouse
AU  - Sherry Emery
AU  - Jidong Huang
AU  - Kurt M Ribisl
TI  - US consumer interest in non-cigarette tobacco products spikes around the 2009 federal tobacco tax increase
AID  - 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2013-051261
DP  - 2015 Jul 01
TA  - Tobacco Control
PG  - 395--399
VI  - 24
IP  - 4
4099  - http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/24/4/395.short
4100  - http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/24/4/395.full
SO  - Tob Control2015 Jul 01; 24
AB  - Objectives This quasi-experimental longitudinal study monitored aggregate Google search queries as a proxy for consumer interest in non-cigarette tobacco products (NTP) around the time of the 2009 US federal tobacco tax increase.Methods Query trends for searches mentioning common NTP were downloaded from Google's public archives. The mean relative increase was estimated by comparing the observed with expected query volume for the 16 weeks around the tax.Results After the tax was announced, queries spiked for chewing tobacco, cigarillos, electronic cigarettes (‘e-cigarettes’), roll-your-own (RYO) tobacco, snuff, and snus. E-cigarette queries were 75% (95% CI 70% to 80%) higher than expected 8 weeks before and after the tax, followed by RYO 59% (95% CI 53% to 65%), snus 34% (95% CI 31% to 37%), chewing tobacco 17% (95% CI 15% to 20%), cigarillos 14% (95% CI 11% to 17%), and snuff 13% (95% CI 10% to 14%). Unique queries increasing the most were ‘ryo cigarettes’ 427% (95% CI 308% to 534%), ‘ryo tobacco’ 348% (95% CI 300% to 391%), ‘best electronic cigarette’ 221% (95% CI 185% to 257%), and ‘e-cigarette’ 205% (95% CI 163% to 245%).Conclusions The 2009 tobacco tax increase triggered large increases in consumer interest for some NTP, particularly e-cigarettes and RYO tobacco.