Cigarettes and Tobacco News

Oct 12, 2006 -- R.J. Reynolds has agreed to a domestic ban on its line of flavored cigarettes such as Twista Lime and Mocha Taboo. Critics say the smokes are marketed to youths.

The tobacco giant settled a broad investigation of its domestic sales and marketing without penalty. The attorneys general of 38 states, including Kentucky, took part in the investigation, according to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Indiana was not part of the settlement.

The company agreed to stop giving cigarettes names that allude to candy, fruit or alcoholic beverages. The company also will stop using scented promotional material, including scratch-and-sniff samples.

The states argued that the flavored cigarettes violate a nationwide settlement with the largest tobacco companies in 1998 that prohibited the marketing of products to youths.

"Candy-flavored cigarettes can now join Joe Camel on the ash heap of defunct tobacco marketing schemes," said Donald Distasio of the American Cancer Society of New York and New Jersey. "This is a tremendous victory."

R.J. Reynolds, which markets Kool, Salem and Camel brands, said it welcomed the settlement and will voluntarily extend it to brands not specifically covered. Flavored cigarettes on the shelves yesterday can be sold, but they can't be restocked.

"This agreement codifies R.J. Reynolds' practice for some time of not using language describing fruit or candy flavors in magazine and newspaper advertising, or point-of-sale communications in non-age-restricted venues," said Chief Executive Lynn J. Beasley.

The deal struck with 40 states, however, exempts the company's experimental "smoking lounge" in Chicago, allowing it to sell flavored premium cigarettes but with packaging that doesn't evoke images of fruit or sweet foods and drink. The deal also allows R.J. Reynolds to offer new lines of flavored cigarettes under revised packaging, the company and state officials said yesterday.