The boom in fruit flavour cigarettes is driving youth smoking in Latin America—despite the tobacco industry’s promises
Fruit flavour “click” or “capsule” cigarettes are an expanding market for big tobacco companies despite their promises to cut smoking and protect young people. The Examination , Salud Con Lupa , and LaBot investigate While much of the world wrestles with regulations around vapes and their many flavours, Philip Morris International (PMI) and British American Tobacco (BAT) have been pumping flavours into conventional cigarettes and fighting efforts to ban the products throughout Latin America, shows a joint investigation by The Examination and the media outlets Salud Con Lupa (Peru), and LaBot (Chile). Featuring splashy packaging, breezy names, and flavours that taste like blueberry, apple, or menthol, new varieties of cigarettes—known as click, capsule, or crush ball cigarettes (a capsule is crushed to use them, making a clicking sound)—are soaring in popularity in Latin America (fig 1). Both PMI and BAT have released dozens of new flavour capsule brands in the region in recent years—de
