This is particularly true among young users: this is one of the main reasons why young people first experience tobacco or nicotine products, according to the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO).
Nicotine and flavored tobacco products are intrinsically addictive and toxic – often more than ordinary tobacco. The flavors increase use, make it more difficult to stop and have been linked to serious pulmonary diseases, which maintains.
Despite decades of progress in tobacco control, flavored products attract a new generation in dependence And contributing to eight million tobacco -related deaths each year.
Marketing focused on young people
Nicotine products are often marketed directly to young people thanks to shiny and colorful packaging with descriptors of sweet and fruity flavors.
Research shows that this type of advertising can trigger adolescent brain reward centers and weaken the impact of health warnings.
Young people also report an increasing presence of nicotine product marketing flavored on all social media platforms.
This marketing of flavors works on all forms of nicotine and tobacco products, including cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, cigars, sachets and hookahs.
Who said that flavors such as menthol, chewing gum and daddy beard, “hide the hardness of tobacco” and other nicotine products, transforming what are toxic products “in bait adapted to young people”.
Call for action
Just before World tobacco Day, the United Nations health agency has published a series of information sheets and called on governments to ban all flavors from tobacco and nicotine products to protect young people from dependence and life disease.
He cited articles 9 and 10 of the 2003 executive agreement on successful tobacco control (FCTC), which obliges countries to regulate the content and disclosure of tobacco products, including aromas.
Chef Tedros Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that “Without bold action, the world tobacco epidemic … will continue to be motivated by a dependence disguised with attractive flavors.“”
In December 2024, more than 50 countries had adopted policies regulating tobacco additives, most of the aromas targeting labels or images of flavors and the restriction of the sale of flavored products. Some also control the use of flavor during production.
However, the WHO noted that tobacco companies and retailers have found ways to get around these rules, offering accessories to flavor, including sprays, cards, capsules and filter advice, to add to unavored products.
However, which urges the 184 FCTC parts (which represent 90% of the world’s population) to implement and apply strong prohibitions and restrictions on flavored products and related additives.
