Cigars and cigarillos, explained

A cigar is tobacco wrapped in tobacco leaf or in a material containing tobacco. A cigarette is tobacco wrapped in paper. That single distinction determines which body of law applies, and manufacturers have designed products around it.

Premium cigars are hand-rolled, use long-filler whole tobacco leaves, carry a natural leaf wrapper, and are expensive. They are the smallest segment of the market by volume and the one most associated with occasional use.

Large machine-made cigars use processed short-filler tobacco and often a homogenized tobacco leaf wrapper, at a fraction of the price.

Cigarillos are small, narrow machine-made cigars, usually without a filter, sold in packs of a few or as singles. They are widely flavored, cheap, and are among the most commonly used tobacco products among young adults.

Little filtered cigars are the most consequential category. They are close to the size and shape of a cigarette, are filtered like a cigarette, are packed in twenties like a cigarette, and are smoked like a cigarette — but because the wrapper contains tobacco they are legally cigars, and so escape cigarette tax rates, the cigarette flavor ban and several cigarette marketing rules.

Little cigars and cigarillos, not premium cigars, are the most commonly used cigar types in the United States. Adult use has risen partly because they are taxed at lower rates than cigarettes, are subject to fewer regulations and marketing restrictions, and are exempt from the flavor ban that applies to cigarettes.

Cigar smoke contains the same toxic and carcinogenic compounds as cigarette smoke, and in some respects more — cigars use aged and fermented tobacco and are typically larger, so a single large cigar can contain as much tobacco as an entire pack of cigarettes and can take an hour or more to smoke.

Cigar smoking causes cancers of the oral cavity, esophagus, larynx and lung. It causes coronary heart disease and increases the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Over four million US adults smoke cigars regularly.

The common belief that cigars are safer because the smoke is not inhaled is unreliable in two ways. First, many cigar smokers do inhale, particularly people who switched from cigarettes and those using little filtered cigars, which are designed for inhalation. Second, the cancers of the mouth, throat and larynx do not require inhalation — exposure of the oral and upper airway tissue is sufficient, and the risk of those cancers is elevated in cigar smokers whether or not they inhale.

Cigar smoke is also a substantial source of secondhand smoke, producing more of it per unit than a cigarette because of the greater tobacco mass and longer burn time.

Nicotine absorption through the mouth is real and cigars are addictive, which contradicts the frequent framing of cigar smoking as a purely occasional social activity. Little filtered cigars in particular are used at cigarette-like frequency by cigarette-like users.

The FDA's 2016 deeming rule extended its tobacco authority to cigars along with all other tobacco products, bringing them within the Tobacco Control Act framework. That is the starting point, and much of it has since been contested successfully.

Premium cigars: a federal district court found the FDA's decision to deem premium cigars subject to the Tobacco Control Act arbitrary and capricious, and the FDA appealed. The litigation does not extend to little cigars or cigarillos, which remain squarely regulated. Anyone relying on the current status of premium cigar regulation should check where the appeal stands rather than assume.

Health warnings: the FDA issued a rule requiring rotating health warnings covering a substantial portion of cigar packaging and advertising. A federal district court vacated it. Manufacturers may comply voluntarily, and some do, but the requirement is not currently enforceable.

Flavors: the 2009 statutory ban on characterizing flavors covered cigarettes only. Flavored cigars and cigarillos remain lawful under federal law. The FDA has proposed a rule to prohibit characterizing flavors in cigars, which has been repeatedly delayed and is not in force. State flavored tobacco bans in Massachusetts and California do cover flavored cigars, as do many local ordinances.

The federal minimum age of 21 applies to all cigar types with no exceptions.

Taxation is where the category difference bites hardest. Federal and state excise treatment of cigars generally differs from cigarettes, often assessed as a percentage of price rather than per stick, which produces very low tax on a cheap cigarillo. Rates vary by state and change, so check your state department of revenue rather than any national figure.

A significant share of cigarillo sales in the United States is not used as sold. Cigarillos are hollowed out and refilled with cannabis to make blunts, and the wrapper is the point — some cigarillo brands are bought overwhelmingly for this purpose.

This matters for interpreting the data. Cigarillo sales figures and self-reported cigarillo use do not straightforwardly measure tobacco consumption, and surveys that ask about cigar use without distinguishing intended use overstate tobacco cigar smoking in some groups.

It matters for health too, in both directions. A blunt still delivers tobacco from the wrapper, which is often not recognised by users who consider themselves non-tobacco-users, and it delivers combustion products from both plants.

The wrapper itself is regulated as a tobacco product. Blunt wraps and rolling papers containing tobacco fall within FDA tobacco authority and the minimum age of 21, whatever they are ultimately filled with.