Commentary: Flavors, Cigars, and Reports

A recent report on youth smoking and flavored tobacco generated headlines and is likely to become ammunition in the efforts to bring cigars under the Food & Drug Administration.

Now, there’s a lot to look at in the article, but I want to bring out a couple of points that I think could be useful in making the case to exempt premium, hand-rolled cigars from FDA oversight.

First, the cigar component of the study deals largely with what are known as little cigars. These are more or less the same as cigarettes, the biggest distinction usually being the composition of the wrapper. In most places, little cigars are considerably cheaper than cigarettes because of the tax structure and offer a ready substitute for cigarette smokers looking to save money. Little cigars have almost nothing in common with premium, hand-rolled cigars.

Next, I think there’s a big hole in the study: no mention or exploration of young people using cigars to smoke marijuana. A spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control told me the agency “does not have data on cigar use in relation to marijuana use.” I’m no expert on kids and grass, but I think it’s reasonable to assume that a fair percentage of the kids who said they smoked cigars did so after replacing tobacco with marijuana. Again, nothing to do with premium cigars.

Then there’s the whole question of “flavored.” The report is based on the National Youth Tobacco Survey, in which students in grades 6 through 12 note their own activity. Cigarettes flavored with anything other than menthol have been outlawed since September 2009. So how, in a 2011 survey, did more than a third of the youth smokers report using flavored cigarettes? Among the authors’ conjectures: The kids could have confused cigarettes with little cigars, or they could have been referring to menthol cigarettes as flavored. Have you ever smoked, or seen, a menthol premium cigar?

Finally, I think it’s a good idea to keep all this in perspective. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reported in December that “while 17.1 percent of 12th graders were current (past month) cigarette smokers—the lowest it has been in the history of the survey—22.9 percent were current marijuana smokers.”

I’d be the last to argue that smoking doesn’t have inherent risks, and I see nothing wrong in the public health sector pointing them out. I also believe keeping tobacco away from under-age boys and girls is worth considerable effort. But it’s also important to recognize the difference between premium, hand-rolled cigars and other forms of tobacco, and not simply lump everything under a single umbrella.

By the way, if you’re looking for more on this topic, check the latest Cigar Aficionado. I was flipping through it about an hour after I wrote this and found that the Editors’ Note addresses many of the same points.

–George E

photo credit: Flickr