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Research and resources

Get the latest facts and analyses on the most important issues in commercial tobacco and substance use. 

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Topic

Emerging tobacco products

As the tobacco product marketplace evolves, new products are emerging that deliver nicotine in different ways. These products include e-cigarettes and oral nicotine pouches, and they typically come in many youth-appealing flavors.

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Traditional tobacco products

Traditional tobacco products — cigars, little cigars and cigarillos, chewing tobacco, snuff, hookah and, of course, cigarettes, including menthol and organic varieties — continue to harm millions of people, as smoking remains the country’s leading cause of preventable death and disease.

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Targeted communities

Tobacco use disproportionately affects many populations — including people in low-income communities, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBT+ individuals, women, youth, members of the military and those with mental illness — who have a long and documented history of being targeted by the tobacco industry.

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Smoking by region

The massive decline in the overall U.S. smoking prevalence disguises a persistent problem. Many communities have not experienced an equally significant reduction in tobacco use, and smoking prevalence varies widely by geographic region. Many of these regions make up what we call “Tobacco Nation,” where smoking prevalence is nearly 50% higher compared to the rest of the country.

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Quitting smoking / vaping

Information on how to quit smoking, vaping, or any tobacco product is in high demand. Most smokers say they want to quit, and e-cigarette use among youth and young adults remains alarmingly high, creating a major need for resources on how to quit vaping. 

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Harmful effects of tobacco

Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the country. Even more, tobacco use isn't just a health issue for smokers — it affects the environment, the economy, and the health of nonsmokers through secondhand smoke.

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Tobacco prevention efforts

We know what works in tobacco prevention: evidence-based strategies, youth and young adult education campaigns, tobacco control policies that restrict exposure and youth access to tobacco, taxes, smoke-free environments, graphic warning labels, and funding for prevention and intervention programs, as well as the activism efforts that propel these measures forward.

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Tobacco industry marketing

The tobacco industry spent almost $9.5 billion marketing its cigarette, smokeless tobacco, and e-cigarette products in 2021, the most recent year with data for all three categories. Almost $9.1 billion (or 95.6%) of that was spent on marketing in the retail environment that year, amounting to over $1 million every hour.

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Tobacco in pop culture

Tobacco imagery in pop culture — including TV, video games, movies and social media — contributes to the normalization of smoking and continues to portray it positively, as a normal social behavior and as glamorous, rebellious and edgy.

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Substance use

Given the toll of the national opioid crisis and its adjacency to our existing work, we are lending our prevention and public health education expertise to the national opioid epidemic. Research ashows that exposure to the highly addictive chemical nicotine, found in tobacco products, can make adolescent brains more susceptible to other addictive substances.

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