Tobacco.org

• Trading Tobacco: Are Youths Choosing Cigars Over Cigarettes? 

The analysis of Ringel and colleagues,1 who found that youths' cigar use is sensitive to price, highlights an important but overlooked issue in public health-the use of tobacco products other than cigarettes. However, since 1999 and 2000, when the data used by Ringel et al. were collected, there have been many changes that deserve discussion.

Cigar consumption in the United States increased by more than 28% between 2000 and 2004, . . .

These findings are both unexpected and worrisome. We should be cautious in declaring a tobacco control success when youths' initiation of cigarette smoking decreases; it is possible that they may still be initiating use of tobacco in another form. Given the decline in cigarette consumption, the steady growth in cigar consumption, the price inequity between cigars and cigarettes, and the innovative marketing of cigars, the threat to public health posed by cigars is real and deserves attention. To prevent youths from substituting one tobacco product for another, state and federal policy should be to impose equivalent taxes on all tobacco products.

Jump to full article »