According to the Centers for Disease Control, flavored tobacco entices children and teens to smoke. Its pretty easy to see how, with flavors such as bubble gum, chocolate, and cotton candy.
Seven out of ten middle and high school students who used tobacco in the past month have used at least one flavored product.
“Flavored tobacco products are enticing a new generation of America’s youth into nicotine addiction, condemning many of them to tobacco-related disease and early death,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Experts have called for more restrictions. Flavorings are banned in cigarettes except for menthol, but they are available in many other forms.
“Although flavorings in cigarettes, except for menthol, have been banned by the U.S. Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act for the last several years, over 7,000 flavors that entice adolescents remain in many other tobacco products,” said Pat Folan, director of the Center for Tobacco Control at North Shore-LIJ Health System in Great Neck, N.Y.
According to Folan, most kids understand that smoking is a deadly habit, but “the attractive flavors in products, such as e-cigarettes, hookah, cigars and smokeless tobacco, have led young people to perceive them as less harmful.”
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