Marketing of Tobacco and Vaping to Children and Youth

Issue at a Glance | NASSP Position | Recommendations for Federal Policymakers | Recommendations for State Policymakers | Recommendations for District Leaders | Recommendations for School Leaders | Download PDF

Issue at a Glance 

The U.S. Surgeon General reports that smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death and disease in our nation. Every day, nearly 1,100 young people under the age of 18 try smoking for the first time, and an estimated 35,000 young people become daily cigarette smokers every year, according to research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2024. Approximately 10% of all high school students and 5% of all middle level students have reported using some type of tobacco product. Research conducted for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in 2008 found that children are three times more sensitive to tobacco advertising than adults and more likely to be influenced by cigarette marketing to smoke than they are by their peers. In addition, one-third of underage experimentation with tobacco products is attributable to marketing by tobacco companies. 

In 1998, the attorneys general of the U.S. and the nation’s largest tobacco companies agreed to a Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) prohibiting the use of certain types of advertisements and forbidding tobacco manufacturers from “directly or indirectly targeting youth in their promotional activities, or engaging in activities with the primary purpose of initiating, maintaining, or increasing youth smoking.” This MSA: 

• Prohibits direct or indirect targeting of youth in advertising, marketing, and promotions. 
• Prohibits brand-name sponsorship of concerts, sports events, events with an intended audience having a significant percentage of youth, and events with paid participants who are youth. 
• Prohibits access by youth to free samples of tobacco products. 
• Prohibits payments for placement of tobacco products in the media. 
• Prohibits outdoor advertising of tobacco products. 
• Prohibits transit ads, on or in public or private vehicles. 
• Prohibits using cartoons to advertise tobacco products. 
• Prohibits tobacco brand-name merchandise. 

However, annual tobacco marketing expenditures among the largest five cigarette manufacturers alone are now up to $8 billion annually, or $22 million daily. Further, in 2021, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that $859.4 million is spent annually on e-cigarette advertising, a nearly 12% increase over the prior year alone. Also in 2021, Preventative Medicine released an article, “Exploring How Tobacco Advertisements are Asso-ciated with Tobacco Use Susceptibility,” reporting that “Adolescents who have never smoked and have frequent exposure to cigarette marketing via the Internet or physical stores are more than two times as likely to begin smoking by the time they become young adults versus counterparts who do not have frequent exposures to these advertisements.” 

Even though tobacco manufacturers are no longer able to advertise to minors and the number of students using regular cigarettes has been decreasing, the number of overall underage tobacco users remains steady due to the popularity of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS), mainly electronic cigarettes. As of 2023, approximately 22% of middle and high school students report having used electronic cigarettes, according to the CDC. Electronic cigarettes pose a dangerous threat to our nation’s youth, as they are much more popular and easily accessible for minors than regular cigarettes. There is extra concern around electronic cigarettes and other ENDS as they are viewed as healthier alternatives to regular tobacco products. 

However, the nicotine in electronic cigarettes still poses substantial risks to our nation’s youth, as it can inhibit attention and learning development. Minors are also more susceptible to addiction than adults, and the use of nicotine at an early age could lead to a long-term addiction, according to the U.S. Surgeon General. In 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finalized a rule to extend its regulatory authority to all tobacco products, including ENDS. This rule, referred to as the deeming rule, allowed the FDA to declare that electronic cigarettes and other forms of ENDS and their components to be subject to regulation under the Tobacco Act. 

Ultimately, the deeming rule prohibits the sale of any ENDS or their components to minors and requires manufacturers to register their products with the FDA to sell them legally. Despite all 50 states and the federal government banning the sale of ENDS to minors, the Public Law Health Center found that many minors have still exploited loopholes to gain access to these devices. This issue is compounded by the marketing of electronic cigarettes. Many of these products feature bright colors and fruit, candy, and/or alcohol or other flavors that youth find attractive and interesting. 

Overall, nearly 90% of electronic cigarette users from ages 12–17 use flavors. The CDC also found that in 2021, seven in 10 middle school and high school students had seen some sort of electronic cigarette advertisement. The 2024 National Youth Tobacco Survey also found that over 1.6 million kids in the U.S. were current e-cigarette users and 85% of them used flavored products.