Tobacco companies push sweet mini cigars on black teens

The FDA has waged war against e-cigarettes and teen vaping - but US health officials have long overlooked the tobacco product that is getting African American teens hooked: cigarillos. 

A single miniature cigar can pack as much nicotine as an entire pack of cigarettes, a trait that's been widely cited in the myriad criticisms of e-cigarettes. 

Marketing campaigns for popular cigarillo brands like Swisher Sweets are every bit as obviously targeted toward young black men and women as e-cigarettes are toward youth in general. 

Sweet flavors are disproportionately popular among the African American population, and the FDA banned flavors other than menthol in cigarettes a decade ago and, last year, promised to look into banning menthol, too. 

Still, sales of cigarillos and small flavored cigars increased from 2011 to 2015, and cigarillo use among young black adults has even reached 'epidemic proportions' according to recent research. 

But the products have remained quiet killers of black Americans, and overlooked by prevention campaigns and regulations. 

Popular cigarillo maker Swisher Sweets Instagram account features attractive young black people smoking its products - not unlike the maligned Juul ad campaigns did with white teens

Popular cigarillo maker Swisher Sweets Instagram account features attractive young black people smoking its products - not unlike the maligned Juul ad campaigns did with white teens

The sweet cigarillo maker even has an 'Artists' Project, featuring celebrities like Cardi B (pictured) who performed at their event in New Orleans, Louisina in 2017 

The sweet cigarillo maker even has an 'Artists' Project, featuring celebrities like Cardi B (pictured) who performed at their event in New Orleans, Louisina in 2017 

The smokers featured on the Instagram accounts of Swisher Sweets and Dutch Masters cigars are almost all young, attractive and black. 

Most of the posts are not quite as highly produced as the ones you might have seen on Juul's Instagram (before it caved to FDA pressure and deactivated the account), but otherwise the images are quite similar. 

Except for one glaring difference: most of the Juul models and posters were white, and the faces on Swisher Sweet's popular account are mostly black. 

'It's very similar to why, back in the 60s and 70s, there was a cocaine epidemic affecting African American communities. Nobody did anything. In fact, they said it was our fault,' says president of the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network (NAATPN), Delmonte Jefferson. 

Instagram posts from cigarillo brands like Swisher Sweets use young, attractive black models and pop culture references, like the Beyonce lyric, 'who run the world?' to attract teens

Instagram posts from cigarillo brands like Swisher Sweets use young, attractive black models and pop culture references, like the Beyonce lyric, 'who run the world?' to attract teens

Even the aesthetics of some cigarillo promotional materials, like this Swisher Sweet Instagram post, resemble the pop-y colors used in Juul ads 

Even the aesthetics of some cigarillo promotional materials, like this Swisher Sweet Instagram post, resemble the pop-y colors used in Juul ads 

Then history repeated itself with the opioid

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