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CORESTA Congress, Online, 2022, Smoke Science/Product Technology Groups, ST 27 (also presented at TSRC 2022)

Medium/long term variability of moist smokeless tobacco products from the United States marketplace

MORTON M.; OLEGARIO R.; SENA E.; WAGNER K.A.
Altria Client Services LLC, Richmond, VA, U.S.A.

The goal of this work is to characterize temporal variability of moist smokeless tobacco (MST) products from the United States marketplace with respect to harmful and potentially harmful constituents (HPHCs) and selected physical measurements for specific brands procured at seven timepoints from the marketplace over a 3-year period. A total of 20 products are included in the study, representing five different manufacturers and 70 % of the U.S. MST market. To separate product variability from potential method temporal variability, the products were frozen immediately after procurement and analyzed together after all the samples were collected. This approach closely matched the approach taken by the CORESTA CVAR Task Force examining cigarette variability. The MST products were analyzed for NNN, NNK, NAT, NAB, nicotine, acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, crotonaldehyde, arsenic, cadmium, pH, portion weight for portioned products, and moisture. Generally, per product moisture, pH, and portion weights were quite similar across the seven samples. Moisture, for example, varied over a range of about 3 % of the product average value ((max-min)/avg). Similar to the CVAR Task Force findings, most of the tobacco-related HPHCs varied considerably over the 3-year period. For example, on average, NNK showed a range that was more than 80 % of the product’s average. These wide variations in the HPHC values should be considered when comparing one smokeless tobacco product to another.