Brazil bans flavored cigarettes

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Brazil has banned the sale of flavored cigarettes across the country, saying the additives used are what lure many young people to start the bad habit in the first place, reported to R7 Notícias. The Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária (National Health Surveillance Agency, Anvisa) announced its decision on Tuesday, which banned additives in cigarettes that create flavors like menthol, honey, cherry, tutti-frutti and chocolate.

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Tobacco industry representatives are also in favor of prohibiting aditives that create flavored cigarettes, but they wanted to continue producing menthols, saying there is no scientific proof that substances in that particular flavor make cigarettes more palatable or addictive, according to Globo's G1.

Sugar alone can still be added to Brazilian-made cigarettes and those imported into the country, and flavored cigarettes can still be exported out of Brazil to be sold elsewhere, reported G1. Cigarette-makers will have 18 months once Anvisa's decision is officially published to pull their flavored cigarettes from the national market, and 24 months to pull other flavored tobacco products from shelves.

Anvisa has allowed other additives aside from sugar to continue being put in cigarettes, reported Diário da Saúde. Adhesives, binding materials, combustion agents, pigments or dyes (used for bleaching paper and printing the brand's logo), glycerol, propylene glycol and potassium sorbate will all still be used in the production of cigarettes.