Cigar Use Symposium: Epidemiology, Toxicant Exposure, Health and Policy Implications

Domestic cigar use has increased over the past 2 decades perhaps partially in response to cigarette restrictions and partially because cigars are used as vehicles for the delivery of marijuana. Although there is ample epidemiologic data to verify use and use patterns, there are relatively few studies that have looked at other aspects of current cigar use, advertising, toxicant exposure, and health effects.

Gaps in knowledge prompted a research symposium entitled Cigar Use: Epidemiology, Toxicant Exposure, Health and Policy Implications in 2016. The symposium was hosted by Battelle Memorial Institute with support from an R03 grant from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Multiple research recommendations emerged from the symposium, such as improvements in cigar monitoring and assessing effects of product design on toxicant delivery that are essential to making regulatory decisions.

Now that FDA has indicated that it intends to regulate cigars, significant new research on cigar characteristics, use and marketing is needed to inform tobacco regulatory policy.