Each year, 31 May is recognised as World No Tobacco Day, making the month of May the perfect time to raise awareness about the ongoing dangers of tobacco and nicotine addiction.

This year’s World No Tobacco Day theme examines how Big Tobacco and the nicotine industry keep working to discover new ways to addict young people into becoming the next generation of nicotine addicts whilst developing new tactics to get around evolving tobacco legislation.

At Health Edco, we have a long and dedicated history of raising awareness about the dangers of tobacco; in fact, we were founded on it! In 1968, our founder and passionate anti-smoking advocate Dr Wayman R Spence created the Lung Ashtray, a special ashtray that gave a graphic demonstration of how smoking damages the lungs and leaves behind dark deposits of tar.

Today, smoking rates among adults are at an all-time low in the UK, with approximately 10.6% of adults smoking cigarettes in 2024. Adults ages 25 to 34 are more likely to be smokers than younger adults, but tobacco companies still have ways to attract young smokers.

For example, as models in our A Closer Look at Tobacco 3-D Display demonstrate, cigars and cigarillos are available in colourful packaging and sweet flavours, such as grape, mango, or chocolate. The sweet flavours help hide the harsh taste of tobacco, making these tobacco products more attractive to new smokers. Thanks to their relatively low-cost, celebrity usage, and manufacturer sponsorship of popular music events, these flavourful tobacco products are highly appealing to teens and young adults.

Because smokeless tobacco isn’t smoked, young people are often tricked into believing that dipping or chewing is a safer way to use tobacco. Yet smokeless tobacco use can lead to dental disease, deadly oral cancers, and other serious health problems.

As depicted in our A Closer Look at Tobacco 3-D Display, tobacco companies use sweet flavours to lure young people to try products such as moist snuff or snus. Snus is designed as a spit-free form of smokeless tobacco, making it easier to conceal its use from parents, teachers, and other adults.

E-cigarettes were originally marketed as tools to help with smoking cessation, but appealing packaging, slick marketing, and sweet flavours quickly attracted the youth market. E-cigarettes have proved to be a successful way for tobacco companies to addict young users to nicotine: Research suggests that most young adults who use e-cigarettes have never smoked cigarettes. For youth who use e-cigarettes, the nicotine in e-cigarettes may prime their developing brains toward addiction, potentially leading them to become smokers or to turn to other addictive drugs.

Our A Closer Look at Tobacco 3-D Display features models of a variety of e-cigarettes (including popular flavoured disposable varieties) to highlight the dangers e-cigarettes pose to vulnerable young people.

Unlike traditional smokeless tobacco pouches, newer forms of oral nicotine contain addictive nicotine without containing tobacco leaves. Coming in a variety of sweet, youth-friendly flavours, these discreet products are another way for young people to become addicted to nicotine whilst flying under the radar of adult eyes. Our A Closer Look at Tobacco 3-D Display includes models of flavoured nicotine pouches and a nicotine pouch can to highlight this newer form of addictive nicotine.

Each section of the A Closer Look at Tobacco 3-D Display—smoke tobacco [including waterpipes (hookah/shisha)], smokeless tobacco, e-cigarettes, and oral nicotine—includes examples of sweet-flavoured products to attract youth. A section on turning youth into users brings into focus how tobacco companies use youth-friendly flavours and fun packaging to addict new generations to nicotine.