Cigarillo sales in legalized marijuana markets in the U.S

Abstract

Background

Nearly half of marijuana users in the United States also smoke cigarillos, with many using the products as marijuana “blunts.” The relationship between marijuana legalization and tobacco retail has not yet been examined. This study uses tobacco sales data to compare the cigarillo marketplace in states with legalized recreational marijuana to the overall U.S. marketplace in 2016.

Methods

Cigarillo sales data from 2016 were obtained from the Nielsen Research Company in the following market regions: Denver, CO; Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; and the overall U.S. Descriptive statistics highlighted differences in the market share of various product features (e.g., flavors, brand, pack size) across regions.

Results

Characteristics such as fruit flavors, single sticks, and 2–3 packs were more popular in legal marijuana regions compared to the overall U.S. Black & Mild, a brand not traditionally used for blunts, was the top brand nationally (32.8% market share), but Swisher was the top brand in legal marijuana regions. In Seattle and Portland, for example, over half the of cigarillo sales were for Swisher products (59.1% and 52.1%, respectively). Cigarillo wraps (i.e., no tobacco filler) were particularly popular in Denver, constituting 11.4% all cigarillo sales versus 2.8% nationally.

Conclusions

Cigarillo product characteristics traditionally associated with blunt use may shape the tobacco market in legal marijuana regions. As more states continue to legalize recreational marijuana, state and local governments should anticipate the potential impact on the tobacco marketplace and implement tobacco control policies (e.g., flavor bans, minimum pack sizes) that discourage product use.

1. Introduction

The commercial sale of recreational marijuana is legal in several U.S. states, and public support for legalization continues to grow. Concurrently, the prevalence of marijuana use has increased over the past decade (Azofeifa et al., 2016), with recent evidence suggesting that rates of use are higher in states where marijuana has some form of legal status (e.g., recreational, medical) (Hasin et al., 2017; Martins et al., 2016; Williams et al., 2017). A concern within the tobacco control community is the impact that marijuana legalization may have on tobacco use behaviors, given the high prevalence of co-use between the two products (Schauer et al., 2015, 2016). One national study found that nearly 70% of current marijuana users also use tobacco products, and that co-use is on the rise (Schauer et al., 2015).

Use of cigarillos (mid-sized, inexpensive cigars that constitute the majority of the mass-merchandise cigar market(Delnevo et al., 2017)) is particularly common among marijuana users, many of whom use the products as “blunts” to smoke marijuana (Giovenco et al., 2016; Koopman Gonzalez et al., 2017; Schauer et al., 2015, 2016). That is, the user empties the tobacco from the cigarillo, replaces it with marijuana, and reseals the outer tobacco leaf. In 2011–2012, nearly half (42.0%) of U.S. adults that smoked marijuana in the past month also reported past-month blunt use, with higher rates reported among young adults ages 18–25 and non-Hispanic blacks compared to older adults and non-Hispanic whites (Schauer et al., 2016). Emerging evidence indicates that blunt use may have serious health risks. For example, blunt users are exposed to nicotine (Peters et al., 2016) and other toxicants through the cigar wrappers, and the co-administration of marijuana and tobacco has been associated with higher dependence on both substances (Schauer et al., 2017; Timberlake, 2009).

Facing considerably fewer regulations compared to cigarettes and other tobacco products, cigarillos have grown popular in recent years, with product features such as flavors and inexpensively-priced 2 and 3 packs driving sales (Delnevo et al., 2017). Moreover, many cigarillo companies seem to design their products to facilitate blunt-making, such as creating products with perforated edges that streamline tobacco removal (Giovenco et al., 2016), and using implicit and explicit flavor names that reference marijuana (e.g., “Green,” “Purple Haze,” “OG Kush”) (Kostygina et al., 2017). Despite the increased legalization of recreational marijuana, research examining the relationship between state marijuana policy and the local tobacco retail environment is extremely limited. One 2013 California-based study found that availability of blunt products was higher in localities with more lenient medical marijuana policies (i.e., permitted medical marijuana dispensaries or private cultivation in the jurisdiction) (Lipperman-Kreda et al., 2014), but no study to date has characterized the cigarillo market in regions with legalized recreational marijuana.

This study uses Nielsen sales data (The Nielsen Company, 2017) to uncover how the market share of cigarillo product features and overall consumption differs in regions where marijuana is recreationally legal compared to the national marketplace. Based on previous qualitative studies with blunt users(Giovenco et al., 2016; Koopman Gonzalez et al., 2017; Stephens et al., 2015), we hypothesize that characteristics valued for blunt making (i.e., brands such as Swisher Sweets, fruit flavors, cigarillo wraps) will be more popular in legal marijuana markets, whereas features not traditionally associated with blunt making (i.e., the brand Black & Mild, unflavored products, large count sizes) will be less popular in these regions compared to the national marketplace.

2. Materials and methods

The Nielsen Research Company collects electronic point-of-sale data for tobacco products in U.S. convenience stores, gas stations, drug stores, grocery stores, mass merchandisers, dollar stores, and other tobacco retailers using a combination of in-store scanner equipment (i.e., barcode readers) and field audits of stores without scanner equipment (The Nielsen Company, 2017). The sales data are nationally and regionally representative and have been used by government agencies and academic researchers to describe patterns and trends in the tobacco marketplace (Delnevo et al., 2017; Kuiper et al., 2017). For this study, data on cigarillo sales in 2016 were obtained for the total U.S. and the following three market regions: Denver, CO; Seattle, WA; and Portland, OR. Sales data were unavailable in Alaska, the only other state where the sale of recreational marijuana was legal in 2016. Each market region is named after its primary city but contains aggregate sales data for several counties making up the city’s overall market area (Denver: 30 counties, Seattle: 16 counties, Portland: 29 counties).

The final dataset contained the total unit and dollar sales of every cigarillo Universal Product Code (UPC) sold in the four study regions in 2016. Additionally, each UPC listing displayed product characteristics such as brand, product type (i.e., cigarillo vs. cigarillo wrap with no tobacco filler), flavor, unit size (i.e., number of cigars per unit), and average unit price. We categorized flavors into the following groups: unflavored, fruit, wine, sweet (e.g., vanilla, cream, chocolate), and other (i.e., flavors such as coffee, or “non-descript” flavors such as Jazz and Tropical). We also created a new variable indicating whether the flavor name contained the words “green” or “purple,” colors associated with several popular strains of marijuana (Leafly, 2017). Market share was calculated as a percentage of total cigarillo dollar sales, a better measure of consumption than unit sales given the wide variability in cigar packaging sizes (Delnevo et al., 2017). Per capita sales were calculated by dividing total dollar sales by the population size in each market region (obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 American Community Survey).

3. Results

Compared to the total U.S., each of the three regions where marijuana is recreationally legal had lower per capita sales of cigarillos and higher median unit prices (Table 1). Although Middleton (the brand that produces Black & Mild cigarillos, not traditionally used for blunt making) was the top brand nationally, Swisher (more commonly used for blunt making) was the most popular brand in all three market regions where recreational marijuana has been legalized. In Seattle and Portland, for example, over half of all cigarillo sales were for Swisher products (59.1% and 52.1%, respectively). The market share of cigarillo wraps in Denver (11.4%) was notably higher than in Seattle (3.1%), Portland (3.0%), and the total U.S. (2.8%). In all regions, the majority of cigarillo sales were for flavored products, but fruit flavors were slightly more popular in the legal marijuana markets compared to nationally (20.6%), especially in Denver (25.3%) and Portland (28.9%). Grape/white grape was the single best-selling flavor in legal marijuana markets, while wine was the most popular flavor in the U.S. overall. The “other” flavor category, primarily consisting of “non-descript” flavors, was extremely popular universally, with “Jazz” driving the category’s sales. The words “purple” or “green” appeared in flavor names of 5.5% of cigarillos sold in Denver, which was slightly higher than the national market (3.1%). These colors were not prevalent in flavor names in Seattle or Portland. Denver appeared similar to the U.S. market in the distribution of packaging sizes, with 2 to 3 packs constituting over half of cigarillo sales, followed by single sticks; however, single sticks were nearly twice as popular in Seattle (51.7%) and Portland (42.1%) compared to nationally (27.0%).

Table 1.

The cigarillo market^a in the United States and recreationally legal marijuana regions,^b 2016, Nielsen Research Company

	US	Denver	Seattle	Portland
Total sales	$2,524,753,260.80	$19,899,800.26	$25,706,598.22	$11,969,601.62
Per capita sales (2015 population)c	7.98	4.19	5.22	3.02
Median unit price	$1.33	$1.61	$1.67	$1.92
Brand
Middleton's (Black & Mild)	32.8	29.7	23.6	25.6
Swisher	28.1	34.8	59.1	52.1
Garcia y Vega	8.7	2.1	1.6	3.1
White Owl	7.7	5.3	3.6	2.6
Dutch Master's	6.4	2.2	0.7	0.3
Backwoods	5.5	5.7	4.3	9.1
Zig Zag	3.3	13.8	3.6	3.2
Other	7.6	6.5	3.5	4.1
Product type
Cigarillo	97.3	88.6	96.9	97.0
Cigarillo wrap (no tobacco filler)	2.8	11.4	3.1	3.0
Flavor category
Unflavored	44.1	35.0	49.0	39.1
Fruit	20.6	25.3	22.1	28.9
Wine	8.5	8.3	3.6	4.5
Sweete	8.2	6.1	5.6	5.9
Otherf	18.7	25.3	19.7	21.7
Color in flavor name
No color	91.9	90.9	95.7	96.4
Green	2.6	2.6	0.9	0.6
Purple	0.5	2.9	0.5	0.9
Other color	5.0	3.6	5.0	2.1
Unit size
1	27.0	25.1	51.7	42.1
2 or 3	50.5	53.9	38.5	47.4
5	18.9	17.9	8.6	9.5
Other	3.6	3.1	1.2	1.0

^aMarket share calculated as a percentage of total dollar sales;

^bSales data unavailable in Alaska;

^cSource for total population size: 2015 American Community Survey, U.S. Census Bureau;

^dIncludes food, drug, club, dollar stores, mass merchandisers, military commissaries;

^eIncludes flavors such as "sweet," "vanilla," "chocolate," "cream." Does not include products such as "Swisher Sweets," where "sweet" is part of the brand name;

^fIncludes flavors such as coffee, or non-descript flavors such as "Jazz" and "Tropical"

4. Discussion

Cigarillo sales from 2016 suggest that in regions where marijuana is recreationally legal, product features known to be associated with blunt use may shape the tobacco marketplace. In Colorado, the first state that legalized marijuana and has experienced a boom in “weed tourism,” cigarillo wraps constituted a sizable portion of overall sales. The wraps eliminate the need to remove the tobacco filler, facilitating blunt-making. Middleton’s Black & Mild, a cigarillo brand that is rarely used for blunts and predominantly used for smoking tobacco (Giovenco et al., 2016; Sterling et al., 2016), is the national brand leader but constitutes a smaller market share in legal marijuana regions. Moreover, fruit flavors, small packaging sizes, and the brand Swisher Sweets, all popular product features among blunt users (Giovenco et al., 2016), are considerably more common in legalized marijuana regions compared to the national marketplace. Notably, per capita sales of cigarillos were lower in markets where marijuana is legal, possibly a reflection of the states’ stronger tobacco control laws (e.g., higher taxes, smoke-free air policies) compared to many U.S. states, cultural attitudes about tobacco smoking, or the availability of and preference for alternative marijuana consumption methods in dispensaries (e.g., edibles, THC oils). Plausibly, one potentially positive effect of marijuana legalization could be a movement away from tobacco co-administration, due to increased accessibility of non-tobacco consumption vehicles.

Limitations are noted. First, Nielsen does not capture sales in every retailer that sells tobacco – smoke shops and dispensaries, for example, are excluded – and its sales regions are only generalizable to the larger market area of the primary city, not the entire state. Moreover, cross-sectional sales data cannot describe how people are using the purchased products nor whether marijuana legalization causes a change in cigarillo sales trends or use behaviors. Future studies should leverage longitudinal sales data and population-level survey data to more appropriately examine the impact of recreational marijuana legalization on the tobacco marketplace and tobacco use behaviors.

As more states continue to legalize recreational marijuana, state and local governments should anticipate the potential impact on the tobacco marketplace and implement tobacco control policies that discourage product use. Many features that have been banned for cigarettes (e.g., flavors, small pack sizes) are driving cigarillo sales (Delnevo et al., 2017), are associated with blunt use (Giovenco et al., 2016; Koopman Gonzalez et al., 2017; Stephens et al., 2015), and are popular among youth and young adults (Delnevo et al., 2015). These characteristics should face similar restrictions to curb the use and appeal of cigarillos.

Highlights.

• Cigarillos are commonly used as blunts to smoke marijuana.

• This study examines cigarillo sales in regions where marijuana is legal.

• Cigarillo features linked to blunt use are more popular in legal marijuana markets.

• Local governments should implement policies that discourage cigarillo use.