An Innovative Packaging and Pricing Regulation to Reduce Youth Cigar Use in Boston, Massachusetts: Rationales and Preliminary Findings

Because early use is predictive of adult behavior, youth have been the primary target of smoking prevention efforts for the past several decades. Educational campaigns, tax increases, labeling requirements, and a ban on flavors in cigarettes are associated with efforts to decrease use. To mitigate their losses from declines in U.S. cigarette consumption and replace smokers who quit, the tobacco industry exploits policy gaps and creates new products. Sales and use data indicate their strategies are working. Youth cigar use now surpasses cigarette use in Massachusetts and six other states, and in Massachusetts there was a 36-fold increase in the sales of grape-flavored cigars from 2006 to 2010, while regular-flavored cigars during the same time period increased only 5%. These dramatic changes are driven, in large part, by the proliferation of cheaper, candy-flavored cigars that have saturated the youth market. In the absence of comparable state and federal taxes and public health laws restricting the sale of flavored, cheap, single cigars, Boston implemented a local regulation prohibiting the sale of cigars unless they come in packages of four, or sell for $2.50 or more if sold as a single unit at retail. In this presentation we will report the progress of the implementation of this regulation as well as preliminary findings from a quasi-experimental design comparing Boston’s youth cigar use rates with the rates of other urban communities in Massachusetts.