Candy-Flavored Cigarettes Still Target Teens!

Shame on certain members of the tobacco industry! I'm horrified, as you should be, too! 

The tobacco industry is continuing to target teens by selling candy-flavored cigarettes, according to the American Lung Association.

Not only that but the products seek to lure our nation's young by:

• Making smoking look "cool" by using hip-hop imagery and attractive women
• Using other appealing advertising and promotion tactics to reach youth in similar ways that R.J. Reynolds' Joe Camel character did a decade ago

• Using such "snazzy" names as Bayou Blast, Back Alley Blend, Winter Mochamint, and Kauai Kolada

These above astute observations were made in the American Lung Association's 14-page eye-opening report, Tobacco Policy Trend Alert: From Joe Camel to Kauai Kolada -- The Marketing of Candy-Flavored Cigarettes.

You'd think the tobacco industry would have stopped its blatant targeting to young people after the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, which included a provision prohibiting them from using cartoon characters to sell cigarettes.

Quite the opposite. Marketing to youth with sweet-flavored cigarettes from such top tobacco companies as Reynolds American came after the Master Settlement Agreement, according to the American Lung Association.

Apparently, this underhanded tactic is even helping boost tobacco sales.

Indeed, 20 percent of smokers aged 17 to 19 smoked flavored cigarettes in the past 30 days, according to several surveys from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York. Only 6 percent of smokers over age 25 tried them.

Worse yet, tobacco products remain "virtually unregulated," the American Lung Association points out.

Every day more than 5,000 kids under 18 try their first cigarette, and more than 2,000 become established daily smokers.

Ugh! Much to my embarrassment, I can attest to the fact that kids start smoking in throngs.

• At age 15 or 26, I tried my first cigarette, after being "forced" (put on the spot) by about 4 "girfriends."
• At age 18 or 19, in my first year of college, I got "hooked" big time -- this time, due to peer pressure and coersion from all 5 smoking college roommates.

I also can back claims about smoking harming your health and becoming fatal.

• I didn't quit smoking til about a decade after I got hooked. (I was short on breath and found it hard to play tennis and ski -- must've been those 2 packs a day!)  To this day, I'm grateful to SmokEnders for helping me to lick the nasty, nasty, health-damaging habit
• Sadly, I lost both an aunt and an uncle to lung cancer caused by their overly excessive smoking habit.

Hurrah for the American Lung Association for pointing out this horrific trend of candy-flavored cigarettes. These outrageous products need to be taken off the market right away!

Take action now and get your voice heard by advocating for stricter FDA regulation of the tobacco industry.