Names for cigars or cigarettes used by the Latino consumer in the United States of America

Abstract

A cigar is a smoked-tobacco product made of cured and fermented leaves rolled into a cylindrical shape. Many types of cigars are available on the market today—they vary in size, shape, flavor, and type of filter and wrapper. These traits often determine the name given to each product. When the United States instituted a tax increase on cigarettes, smokeless tobacco products, and cigars in 2009 through the Children’s Health insurance Program Reauthorization Act (1), consumption of some smoked-tobacco products rose. In fact, the higher cigarette/cigar tax positioned small cigars among the country’s most popular tobacco products (2). This was partly a result of manufacturers making their small cigars slightly heavier to qualify for a preferential tax rate, avoiding the higher taxes leveed by the 2009 law. Sales of smaller cigars such as “little cigars” and cigarrillos have increased tremendously since that time, by 238% and 148%, respectively. The growing popularity of these non-cigarette smoked-tobacco products has been multiplied by their availability for purchase as single units and in different flavors (e.g., apple, strawberry, grape, chocolate, vanilla), which makes them more appealing to youth and young adults...