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Today, most people who use nicotine try it first in a flavored product. This makes it easier and more attractive for them to start.
This is especially true for young people. The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) says that flavors are one of the top reasons young people try tobacco or nicotine in the first place.
Flavored nicotine and tobacco products are highly addictive and harmful. In many cases, they are even more dangerous than regular tobacco. Flavors make it easier to keep using the products and harder to quit. Some have also been linked to serious lung problems.
Even after many years of efforts to control tobacco use, flavored products are pulling young people into addiction. These products contribute to around eight million deaths each year from tobacco use.
Marketing to Young People
These products are often advertised directly to youth. The packaging is colorful and shows sweet and fruity flavors. Research shows this kind of marketing excites the brain’s reward system in teenagers and makes health warnings less effective.
Young people also say they’re seeing more flavored nicotine ads on social media.
This kind of marketing affects all types of nicotine and tobacco products – including cigarettes, e-cigarettes, cigars, nicotine pouches, and hookahs.
WHO says flavors like menthol, bubble gum, and cotton candy “hide the harsh taste of tobacco,” making dangerous products seem friendly to young people.
A Call to Stop Flavored Products
Before World No Tobacco Day, WHO released new fact sheets and urged governments to ban all flavors in tobacco and nicotine products to protect youth from addiction and disease.
They pointed to a global treaty from 2003 called the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which says countries should regulate what goes into tobacco products – including flavors.
WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that without strong action, the tobacco epidemic will keep growing, “driven by addiction covered up with tasty flavors.”
By the end of 2024, over 50 countries had made rules about flavorings. Most had banned flavor names or pictures on products and limited flavored product sales. Some also controlled flavors during manufacturing.
Still, tobacco companies are finding ways around the rules. They now sell flavor sprays, cards, capsules, and flavored filter tips to add to unflavored products.
WHO is asking all 184 countries in the FCTC – which covers 90% of the world’s population – to fully ban flavored products and close all loopholes.
Major tobacco companies like Philip Morris and British American Tobacco manufacture nicotine candies disguised as lozenges or pouches, and targeting them directly—through global regulation and naming campaigns—could be more effective than focusing only on sales restrictions.
When governments have banned harmful products like leaded gas, asbestos, and ozone-destroying chemicals, real progress has been made. The same could happen with nicotine if it is stopped it at the factory gate.
Source: United Nations.
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