Skip Navigation LinksObjective-3-Address-the-Evolving-Tobacco-Product-Landscape

TOBACCO EDUCATION AND RESEARCH OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE (TEROC)ā€‹ā€‹ā€‹ā€‹ā€‹

Achieving Health Equityā€‹: Standing Together Againstā€‹ Commercial Tobacco & Nicotine, 2025ā€“2026

Objective 3: Address the Evolving Tobacco Product Landscape

Download Objective 3 (PDF).

ā€‹ā€‹Key Themeā€‹sā€‹

  • The landscape of tobacco and cannabis products constantly evolves as the industries seek ways to evade restrictionā€‹ā€‹s and hoā€‹ok users.
  • New and emerging products threaten to addict a new generation of users and re-normalize tobacco use.
  • It is critical to stay abreast of these products and develop interventions to address them.ā€‹

The tobacco industry continues to invent and reinvent tobacco products to evade restrictions and entice new users. New products such as nicotine pouches and heated tobacco, synthetic nicotine, and zero nicotine products present new challenges for public health.1,2 The industry is co-opting the harm reduction narrative, promoting its newer products as ā€œsaferā€ or ā€œless harmfulā€ than its older products in order to appeal to consumersā€™ health concerns, garner good will, and skirt restrictions.3,4 Many are designed to keep current tobacco users from quitting and entice children and young adults who have never used tobacco to start.4

Meanwhile, as the use of cannabis is permitted in more public places, it threatens to renormalize smoking and roll back existing tobacco laws.5 The rapidly growing cannabis industry has adopted tactics long used by the tobacco industry, including predatory marketing to marginalized communities.6 These developments endanger the progress that has been made against smoking and vaping. They demand a strong public health response addressing the combined threat of tobacco, cannabis, and these new and emerging products.

Recommended Strategies

Policyā€‹ā€‹ā€‹

  • Ensure that tobacco restrictions cover all tobacco products, including:
    • Cigarettes, cigars, and other combustibles.
    • Spit tobacco, snus, nicotine pouches, and other oral tobacco products.
    • Vape pens and other battery-operated devices that deliver nicotine or other vaporized liquids.
    • Products that can be used with either tobacco or cannabis, such as blunt wraps, hemp wraps, and rolling papers.
    • New and emerging products such as herbal vapes and heated tobacco products.7
  • Ensure that tobacco policies do not exempt so-called ā€œreduced riskā€ products, such as those designated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as Modified Risk Tobacco Products,8 or products authorized for sale through a Premarket Tobacco Product Application.9 (See also Objective 8.)
  • ā€‹Ensure that the tobacco industry is unable to subvert laws prohibiting the sales of certain tobacco products by modifying or renaming them.
  • As the California Attorney General develops a state-administered list of unflavored tobacco products allowed to be sold under SB 793,10 encourage local jurisdictions to adopt stronger ordinances prohibiting the sale of all tobacco products, including those on the list.11
  • Prohibit the use of all nicotine, cannabis, and non-nicotine products that produce smoke or aerosol wherever tobacco smoking is prohibited, such as in indoor and outdoor workplaces, parks, multi-unit housing, and other public places. (See also Objective 5.)
  • Apply best practices and lessons learned from the regulation of cigarettes to the regulation of all tobacco and cannabis products, including restrictions on advertising.
  • Strengthen enforcement of restrictions on tobacco and cannabis retailers to prevent illicit sales.ā€‹
ā€‹



Social media post touting ZYN nicotine pouches as a healthier alternative to cigarettes. Social media post touting ZYN nicotine pouches as a healthier alternative to cigarettes. 

From the collection of Stanford University (tobacco.stanford.edu).ā€‹


Ad for IQOS, a heated tobacco product marketed by Philip MorrisAd for IQOS, a heated tobacco product marketed by Philip Morris.

From the collection of Stanford University (tobacco.stanford.eduā€‹).ā€‹

ā€‹Educationā€‹

  • Continue to ensure that school curricula keep pace with the changing landscape of tobacco and cannabis products and that educators receive timely information on emerging products.
  • Educate students on marketing tactics used by the tobacco and cannabis industries to target young people and normalize use, including the use of social media influencers to market products.
  • Apply best practices and lessons learned from anti-smoking public education campaigns to new campaigns designed to reduce demand for other tobacco and cannabis products, especially those misleadingly marketed as wellness products.
  • ā€‹Increase public understanding of the interconnectedness of tobacco, cannabis, and related emerging products, and the industries that produce them.

Researchā€‹ā€‹

  • Monitor the marketplace to identify new tobacco and cannabis products.
  • Conduct rapid-cycle research on new products to understand their chemistry and likely health impacts and quickly disseminate these findings.
  • Monitor trends in the uptake of new products, especially by young people and priority populations, as part of the ongoing surveillance of tobacco and cannabis use.
  • Research the health effects of all tobacco and cannabis product use, including dual and poly use.
  • Assess changes over time in the potency of tobacco and cannabis products and determine how high levels of nicotine and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, affect use and dependence.
  • Research patterns in the use of tobacco and cannabis products by people with substance use disorders, and how substance use treatment providers address dependence on these products.
  • Research the industryā€™s incorporation of digital engagement, gaming, and incentives in tobacco product design, such as in ā€œsmart vapes.ā€12ā€‹

ā€‹ā€‹ā€‹Partnership

  • Work with other stakeholders on tobacco endgame strategies, such as prohibiting the sale of tobacco products with nicotine content above a certain level, decreasing retailer density, eliminating sales in pharmacies, and setting minimum prices.ā€‹
  • Partner with substance use prevention groups to:

    • Counter predatory marketing tactics for cannabis, especially those targeting young people and priority populations.13
    • Support restrictions on cannabis advertising consistent with tobacco advertising restrictions and applied equitably across all communities.
    • Share lessons learned from the denormalization of tobacco use to inform efforts to denormalize cannabis use.
    • Share lessons learned from work on tobacco retailer density and minimum pricing to inform efforts to restrict cannabis sales, particularly in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.ā€‹ā€‹

ā€‹On a Kool web page, a fashionably dressed young woman touches her hat and smokes a cigarette. Beside her appear the words ā€œDiscoScreenshot of the Kool website advertising non-menthol cigarettes, ā€œyour answer to Californiaā€™s menthol ban.ā€

From the collection of Stanford University (tobacco.stanford.eduā€‹ā€‹)

A 30-second video shows various individuals being manipulated into using tobacco while a narrator debunks the industryā€™s claims  CTPP media campaign video exposes the tobacco industryā€™s attempts to co-opt the harm reduction narrative.

Source: UNDO


Under the words ā€œWeed's come a long way, baby," three fashionably dressed women pose and hold cannabis products.

Cannabis ad based on the Virginia Slims advertising campaign.

Source: Edie Parkerā€‹

Funding

  • Advocate for increased support for cannabis prevention programming from Proposition 64 (the Control, Regulate, and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act of 2016),14 including:
    • Establishing a body similar to TEROC to provide public health oversight of the use of funds in the Youth Education, Prevention, Early Intervention and Treatment Account (YEPEITA).
    • Establishing a body similar to TRDRP to fund cannabis prevention research.
    • ā€‹ā€‹ā€‹Increasing funding for the CDPH California Cannabis Surveillance System (CCSS) and Cannabis Education and Youth Prevention Program (CEYPP).
    • ā€‹Earmarking a share of local Proposition 64 revenues for cannabis prevention programming.

Download ā€‹Objective 3 (PDF).

Download the ā€‹full 2025ā€“2026 Tā€‹EROC Plan(PDF, 4.9 MB)ā€‹.ā€‹ā€‹ā€‹ā€‹ā€‹

References

1 Strongin RM, Sharma E, Erythropel HC, et al. Emerging ENDS products and challenges in tobacco control toxicity research. Tob Control. 2023;33(1):110ā€“115.

2 Duren M, Atella L, Welding K, Kennedy RD. Nicotine pouches: a summary of regulatory approaches across 67 countries. Tob Control. Published online February 7, 2023.

3 Dewhirst T. Co-optation of harm reduction by Big Tobacco. Tob Control. 2021;30:e1ā€“e3.

4 STOP. Tobacco harm reduction: the industryā€™s latest Trojan horse? (PDF) Issue brief. Exposetobacco.org. January 2024.

5 American Nonsmokersā€™ Rights Foundation. Marijuana threatens smokefree protections. April 18, 2024.

6 Unger JB, Vos RO, Wu JS, et al. Locations oā€‹f licensed and unlicensed cannabis retailers in California: a threat to health equity? Prev Med Rep. 2020;19:101165.

7 In addition, all products containing nicotine should be considered tobacco products except nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products approved by the FDA for tobacco cessation.

8 A Modified Risk Tobacco Products (MRTP) is a product that the FDA has determined ā€œwill or is expected to benefit the health of the population as a whole,ā€ e.g., when tobacco users switch from using riskier products. See https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/advertising-and-promotion/ā€Œmodified-risk-tobacco-products.

9 The Premarket Tobacco Product Application is an FDA process for seeking approval to market a new tobacco product that it determines ā€œis appropriate for the protection of public health,ā€ e.g., when tobacco users switch. See https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/market-and-distribute-tobacco-product/premarket-tobacco-product-applications.

10 California Health and Safety Code Ā§ 104559.5.

11 Public Health Law Center. State e-cigarette registry bills and what to make of them. February 1, 2024.

12 Wong M, Talbot P. Pac-Man on a vape: electronic cigarettes that target youth as handheld multimedia and gaming devices. Tob Control. Published online June 15, 2024.

13 Kirkilas G. Cannabis advertising takes page from tobacco companiesā€™ playbook of the past. Postbulletin.com. May 26, 2022.

14 California Health and Safety Code Ā§ 11361.8.ā€‹ā€‹

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