Although we’d love to see cigarette smoking rates dropping among our youth, certain manufacturers are trying their darndest to get our kids smoking. They deny this, but if it’s not for teen smoking, how else do you explain candy and fruit flavored cigarettes?
It’s not the 40-year-old who has been smoking for over 20 years who will buy these “cigarettes,” but someone who is jut beginning and doesn’t want that tobacco taste, right? These flavors added to cigarettes and other tobacco products make them more appealing to teens. According to statistics, 17-year-old smokers are three times as likely to use flavored cigarettes as smokers over the age of 25.
Well, the FDA has taken notice and as of yesterday, September 22, 2009, the sale of fruit or candy cigarettes has been banned in the United States:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced today a ban on cigarettes with flavors characterizing fruit, candy, or clove. The ban, authorized by the new Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, is part of a national effort by the FDA to reduce smoking in America. Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in America.
Of course, those who want to sell these products will tell you that they’re not for children and that only adults should be buying them. If that’s the case, then why has the FDA found that most of the advertising for these flavored cigarettes are found to be geared towards kids who may be lead to believe that these are a healthier alternative to “real” cigarettes?
They should be ashamed of themselves – but they won’t be. It’s their business to increase business and I guess it doesn’t really matter how they do it.
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Image: PhotoXpress.com
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