Brand Cigarillos: Low Price but High Particulate Matter Levels—Is Their Favorable Taxation in the European Union Justified?

Julia Wasel, Michael Boll, Michaela Schulze, Daniel Mueller, Matthias Bundschuh, David A. Groneberg and Alexander Gerber

IJERPH, 2015, vol. 12, issue 8, 1-13

Abstract: Background : Second hand smoke (ETS)-associated particulate matter (PM) contributes considerably to indoor air contamination and constitutes a health risk for passive smokers. Easy to measure, PM is a useful parameter to estimate the dosage of ETS that passive smokers are exposed to. Apart from its suitability as a surrogate parameter for ETS-exposure, PM itself affects human morbidity and mortality in a dose-dependent manner. We think that ETS-associated PM should be considered an independent hazard factor, separately from the many other known harmful compounds of ETS. We believe that brand-specific and tobacco-product-specific differences in the release of PM matter and that these differences are of public interest. Methods : To generate ETS of cigarettes and cigarillos as standardized and reproducible as possible, an automatic second hand smoke emitter (AETSE) was developed and placed in a glass chamber. L&M cigarettes (“without additives”, “red label”, “blue label”), L&M filtered cigarillos (“red”) and 3R4F standard research cigarettes (as reference) were smoked automatically according to a self-developed, standardized protocol until the tobacco product was smoked down to 8 mm distance from the tipping paper of the filter. Results : Mean concentration (Cmean) and area under the curve (AUC) in a plot of PM 2.5 against time were measured, and compared. CmeanPM 2.5 were found to be 518 ?g/m 3 for 3R4F cigarettes, 576 ?g/m 3 for L&M “without additives” (“red”), 448 ?g/m 3 for L&M “blue label”, 547 ?g/m 3 for L&M “red label”, and 755 ?g/m 3 for L&M filtered cigarillos (“red”). AUCPM2.5-values were 208,214 ?g/m 3 ·s for 3R4F reference cigarettes, 204,629 ?g/m 3 ·s for L&M “without additives” (“red”), 152,718 ?g/m 3 ·s for L&M “blue label”, 238,098 ?g/m 3 ·s for L&M “red label” and 796,909 ?g/m 3 ·s for L&M filtered cigarillos (“red”). Conclusion : Considering the large and significant differences in particulate matter emissions between cigarettes and cigarillos, we think that a favorable taxation of cigarillos is not justifiable.

Keywords: particulate matter; PM; tobacco smoke; cigarillos; ETS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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