E-Cigs, Flavored Tobacco & Your Kids: What You Should Know

By Kelli Miller In the past few decades, anti-tobacco lobbyists including the American Cancer Society’s advocacy organization, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, have made great strides in banishing the seductive advertisements that once lured people to smoking. Gone are the days of commercials touting tobacco's "bold" taste and "big" flavor. In their place are health campaigns to help people kick the habit, and a consensus that society's been successful in stigmatizing smoking. Certainly, fewer people are lighting up conventional (combustible) cigarettes these days. Even our kids -- and that certainly is a great victory. But a new genre of noncombustible, candy-flavored smoking products is hitting the market -- and slick, provocative pinup ads are sneaking up on us once again. The target? Our children. The decline of regular cigarette smoking among our kids has gone hand-in-hand with a sharp jump in the use of electronic cigarettes, or e-cigs, and other flavored non-cigarette tobacco products called hookahs, according to statistics from the CDC's National Youth Tobacco Survey. "We're seeing alarming number of kids using flavored products of all kinds, such as hookahs and e-cigs," says Cliff Douglas, Vice President for Tobacco Control and Director of the Tobacco Control Center at the American Cancer Society. "The industry is producing these products using thousands of flavors, like watermelon and gummy bear, many of the...
Source: American Cancer Society :: News and Features - Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: Smoking/Tobacco Source Type: news