Center for Rapid Surveillance of Tobacco (CRST) will perform surveillance of tobacco product marketing, the tobacco product marketplace, and tobacco use behaviors, transforming tobacco surveillance to be rapid, comprehensive, and coordinated, with salient findings fed immediately into traditional data collection systems. By identifying and evaluating signals in a timely fashion, the CRST will generate critical actionable information about changes in tobacco products which can inform FDA’s regulation of tobacco products leading to a substantial public health impact.

Tobacco Industry Monitoring (TIM) Alert

Tobacco Industry Marketing (TIM) Alerts provide weekly newsletters to subscribers to keep up to date with tobacco industry marketing and emerging tobacco products.

Excerpt from the Mar 21, 2025 TIM Alert

CIGARETTES

An Alert earlier this year covered the new agreement between 22nd Century Group and the Smoker Friendly convenience chain; now, the brands have revealed rebranding for VLN packs and new Smoker Friendly-branded SF VLN cigarette packs. According to the press release, the companies are awaiting state approval before shipping these products.

ENDS

Geek Bar promoted their presence at upcoming music festivals on Instagram, highlighting EDC Vegas, one of the biggest electronic music festivals in North America. The brand uses the booths at these events to share flavor samples, let visitors test products, and hand out merch.