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.
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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 Jun 27, 2025 TIM Alert
CIGARETTES
In the recent issue of the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) magazine, a business-to-business publication, KOOL announced the forthcoming launch of KOOL Black in July, a new menthol cigarette. Apparently, the product has been tested in 14 states and will now be available nationally; KOOL Black is not yet featured on KOOL’s consumer-facing website. The ad promises a lower price point for this product to entice retailers.
OTHER
22nd Century, the maker of VLN cigarettes, which have exposure modifications orders from FDA to make certain reduced exposure claims regarding nicotine, recently announced the release of a new low-nicotine product. As part of the company’s line of Pinnacle branded products, they will release a new reduced-nicotine moist snuff product, available in Straight and Wintergreen flavors. The company will also release two new branded Pinnacle VLN cigarettes - Pinnacle VLN Gold cigarettes and Pinnacle Menthol VLN. Pinnacle’s moist snuff is expected to be available to consumers in the second half of 2025 and the Pinnacle VLN cigarettes are expected to be available in late summer/early fall of 2025.