Second-hand smoke: 2.7 billion exposed, 767 million of them children, study finds

Copyright Cleared/Canva

By Marta Iraola Iribarren

Published on 08/09/2026 - EURONEWS

Second-hand smoke causes serious health harm, including heart disease, respiratory illness and cancer, and remains a leading cause of preventable death worldwide.

A third of the world’s population is exposed each year to second-hand smoke — also known as passive smoking — which continues to be a major source of illness and mortality among non-smokers.

An estimated 2.71 billion people around the world were exposed to second-hand smoke— a combination of two types of smoke inhaled by non-smokers — in 2023, contributing to 1.66 million deaths. This includes 767 million children under 15, who are especially vulnerable, along with 1.49 billion women.

These new findings come from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2023 study, published in The Lancet Public Health, which estimated second-hand smoke exposure and health impacts across 204 countries and territories between 1990 and 2023.

Need for stronger regulation

Despite the scale of exposure, the study found that approximately 70% of the world’s population is not protected by comprehensive smoke-free laws.

As of 2024, only 79 countries, approximately 70% of them in the Americas, have achieved the highest protection standards of the World Health Organization framework — with all public places completely smoke-free or at least 90% of the population covered by legislation.

The proportion of the global population covered by comprehensive smoke-free legislation has increased from 3% in 2007 to 33% in 2024, now covering 2.6 billion people.

However, the authors noted that while smoke-free policies directly reduce smoke exposure, there is a need for extra measures such as tobacco taxation, marketing bans, plain packaging and cessation programmes.

Related

• Hundreds of meetings, €8 million a year: How Big Tobacco lobbies the EU
• Cigarettes are on the decline in the EU, but how popular are smoking and vaping still?

Regional patterns

The researchers found that the number of people impacted by second-hand smoke exposure remained broadly the same globally, but rose sharply in sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, which they attributed to population growth.

The exposure prevalence in the Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia region was 37.7% — higher than the global average of 33.9% — affecting 146 million people.

Most of the countries in Western Europe were included in the “high-income super region,” which showed some of the most significant progress in reducing passive smoking.

Denmark and Norway achieved some of the world's largest reductions since 1990, at -48,8% and -44,3%, respectively.

Broad health impacts

Beyond how many people are exposed, the report found that second-hand smoke accounted for the loss of 44.8 million years of healthy life and continues to be a major contributor to disability and premature death.

While a smoker inhales "mainstream smoke" through the cigarette's filter, non-smokers primarily breathe in sidestream smoke. This is unfiltered and contains higher per-unit concentrations of toxic and carcinogenic compounds than the smoke inhaled by the smoker.

The researchers estimated that second-hand smoke remains a substantial driver of global health loss, particularly through cardiovascular and paediatric respiratory diseases.

Exposure to tobacco smoke was associated with several health conditions, including stroke, lower respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, type 2 diabetes and cancers of the trachea, lung and breast.

 

Using FDA addiction science, researcher asks: Do salty, high-fat foods act like drugs?

University of Kansas

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LAWRENCE — University of Kansas researcher Tera Fazzino is investigating whether “hyperpalatable” foods marketed to Americans — foods formulated with artificially high amounts of fat, salt and carbohydrates — have traits commonly associated with addictive substances. She recently earned a $2.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to test the idea using experimental practices standard in the field of regulatory research.

“We’re using methodology that has already been established in the areas of tobacco and drug regulatory science and is required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for any testing of nicotine or other tobacco or pharmaceutical products that enter the market,” said Fazzino, associate professor of psychology at KU and director of the Life Span Institute’s Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Research & Treatment. “We're using methodology that’s already been established with known substances and addictive drugs and is used for screening and surveillance and regulatory efforts. We're applying it to testing the addictive properties of these foods.”

Fazzino and her colleagues will recruit around 168 participants, then provide them with different “potato chip” food stimuli produced in coordination with the Food Innovation Accelerator program at Kansas State University-Olathe. The food stimuli will differ in their formulations, and their formulations won't be known by participants.

“In the lab, they will sample a chip food stimulus,” Fazzino said. “Then they'll answer some questions about what they think about the chips, how much they like them and then complete some behavioral tasks.”

These tasks will help measure the chips’ “reinforcing effects,” said the KU researcher.

“One will be a self-administration task where they will earn chips to eat,” she said. “We chose chips because this type of savory, salty, carb- and/or fat-heavy food is very characteristic of the U.S. food environment. It’s a kind of a nice, initial food stimulus to use that would have pretty broad applicability to the entire food supply.”

The chip study is based on long-established methodology used by FDA regulators to assess “abuse liability,” which the agency defines as “the potential of a substance to result in addiction and be used repeatedly or even sporadically resulting in undesirable effects.”

“Typical abuse-liability paradigms test the addictive properties of a substance by designing an experiment called an acute dose-response paradigm, where they test different concentrations of the drug,” Fazzino said. “The main comparison is what's called a negative control, which has none of the reinforcing characteristics of the substance being tested. So, for example, if we were testing the addictive properties of vaping products for nicotine, the negative control there would be just vapor without the nicotine in it. We’ve designed our paradigm accordingly, and this acute dose-response paradigm is the gold standard for testing the addictive properties of substances.”

Results could help identify specific ingredients or ingredient combinations that boost a food’s reinforcing properties.

“These foods contain combinations of nutrients, such as fat and sodium or carbohydrates and sodium, at levels that are uncommon in nature,” Fazzino said. “If you remove one of those key nutrients, the food should become less reinforcing.”

The KU researcher said her findings might inform regulators and policymakers, not just fellow scholars.

“The grant was written in a way that we could be able to provide direct evidence to the FDA about the abuse liability of these food stimuli, with the intention of informing potential regulatory action,” she said.

Fazzino recently published findings into how the tobacco industry used practices from cigarette sales to formulate and market hyperpalatable foods in the U.S. and globally in the 1980s and 1990s, with a legacy of negative consequences public health. She said she hopes her new research could spur U.S. policymakers, who she said lag behind regulators in other parts of the world.

“South America is leading the way,” Fazzino said. “Countries like Colombia and Chile have been very proactive in enacting regulatory action to protect their populations from these foods and to prevent these foods from taking over their food supplies. That’s included bans on marketing, especially to children. That has also included really strong, very clear black warning labels with white letters indicating this is ultra-processed or this is unhealthy in some way, and taxation on certain products.”

The NIH grant will enable hiring of a postdoctoral researcher dedicated to the project, fund work by graduate students, and give research and training opportunities to KU undergraduates.

“It's funding not only the study, but student trainees,” Fazzino said. “We have a new postdoc who just joined us. We have research coordinators who will all get state-of-the-art training and experience working on this study. This is really on the forefront of addiction science.”

 

Early nicotine vapor exposure increases nicotine seeking later in life, UTEP study finds

University of Texas at El Paso

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image: 

Ian Mendez, Ph.D. (left), associate professor of pharmacy and chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at The University of Texas at El Paso, and Liliana Maynez-Anchondo (right), a doctoral student in the UTEP Department of Psychology, are two of the coauthors of a study that found nicotine vaping during adolescence may leave a lasting imprint on the brain’s reward system, driving nicotine-seeking behavior well into adulthood.

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Credit: The University of Texas at El Paso.

EL PASO, Texas (Aug. 26, 2026) – Nicotine vaping during adolescence may leave a lasting imprint on the brain's reward system, driving nicotine-seeking behavior well into adulthood even after long stretches without any exposure, according to new research led by scientists at The University of Texas at El Paso.

The findings, published in the journal Psychopharmacology, come from a study by a UTEP team working across the School of Pharmacy and the Department of Psychology in the College of Liberal Arts.

Using an animal model of e-cigarette use, the researchers tracked reward-seeking behavior from adolescence through late adulthood.

The most striking result came in the study's final phase, the team said, which was conducted in late adulthood. Following a lengthy period of abstinence, subjects exposed to nicotine vapor early in life sought out nicotine significantly more often than those never exposed. The behavior persisted despite the long gap, pointing to durable changes in how the brain responds to nicotine.

"What we found is that the effects of early nicotine vapor exposure don't simply fade with time," said Ian Mendez, Ph.D., associate professor of pharmacy at UTEP, chair of the pharmaceutical sciences department and the study's corresponding author. "Even after an extended period with no nicotine whatsoever, that early exposure was still shaping behavior later in life. That matters enormously for the millions of young people who began vaping as teenagers and are now carrying the habit into adulthood."

A second experiment examined whether nicotine vapor itself would motivate sustained, effortful work. When each delivery required escalating effort, nicotine drove only modest responding. When the effort required was low, subjects clearly favored a port delivering nicotine. The pattern is consistent with earlier findings that nicotine is a comparatively subtle reinforcer, and it illustrates how challenging vaping behavior can be to capture in a pre-clinical model.

The work lands at a moment of sustained concern about youth vaping. E-cigarettes remain the most commonly used nicotine product among American adolescents, according to data from the FDA National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS). Nicotine use is the leading preventable cause of disease, death and disability in the United States, yet the cumulative health effects of vaping that begin in the teenage years and continue into adulthood remain poorly understood, the researchers noted.

"Our faculty and students are confronting a public health crisis that reaches into many households,” said José O. Rivera, Pharm.D., founding dean and professor at UTEP's School of Pharmacy. “And they are doing it with the rigor and creativity that define this University.”

The authors note that the study examined only male subjects and call for future work that includes female subjects, citing well-documented sex differences in the mechanisms driving nicotine use disorder. They also recommend that subsequent studies test how the unique additives and metabolites in e-liquids – the materials that are heated and converted into inhalable aerosol by electronic cigarettes and vaping devices – affect the brain and behavior.

The study was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health.

About The University of Texas at El Paso

The University of Texas at El Paso is America's leading Hispanic-serving university. Located at the westernmost tip of Texas, where three states and two countries converge along the Rio Grande, 84% of our 26,000 students are Hispanic, and more than half are the first in their families to go to college. With respect to research, UTEP is in the top 5% of universities in America and offers 169 bachelor's, master's and doctoral degree programs at the only open-access, top-tier research university in America.

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Journal

Psychopharmacology

DOI

10.1007/s00213-026-07122-8 

Article Title

Early life nicotine vapor exposure increases nicotine vapor seeking in adult male rats

Trump ally cashing in on vape firm accused of targeting kids and a brutal junta

Kathleen Culliton
August 20, 2026 

RAW STORY

U.S. President Donald Trump holds a hat after signing an executive order in the Oval Office, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. February 25, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

A vape distributor accused of illegally peddling nicotine products to kids has found a champion in Washington, D.C., a former ally of President Donald Trump's who is raking in millions as a lobbyist.

His name is Roger Stone.

Mother Jones reported Thursday that Stone has earned more than $4 million as a lobbyist for firms such as vape-distributor Ecto World under the new administration.

"Trump’s return to the White House has been a tremendous boon to Stone, who not long ago was claiming he had been nearly bankrupted by legal fees," Mother Jones reported.

The report describes him as a "conspiracy theorist and political provocateur who was convicted of lying to Congress and witness tampering in the Trump–Russia investigation, sentenced to 40 months in prison, and subsequently pardoned by Trump."

Stone’s lobbying firm Drake Ventures has signed up a slew of clients that include the cryptocurrency investor “Bitcoin Jesus,” indicted last year on federal fraud charges, and the military junta in Myanmar, reportedly paying Stone $50,000 a month.

Crimes against humanity have spiked in the Junta since the military takeover in 2021, the report notes.

As for Ecto World, it stands accused in New York of trying to get people hooked on nicotine.

"New York State Attorney General Letitia James sued Ecto World and other vape companies for illegally distributing, marketing, and selling addictive candy- and fruit-flavored disposable nicotine products," the report states, "many produced in China, targeting sales to children and fueling the youth vaping epidemic."

How people consume cannabis may signal risk for heavy use and addiction

NYU Langone Health / NYU Grossman School of Medicine

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Nearly half of adults in the United States who use cannabis mainly smoke it, but about 1 in 7 use it in nearly every form available, a behavior tied to daily cannabis use and increased addiction risk, a new study shows. 

Cannabis can be consumed through smoking, vaping, eating, or dabbing, a practice in which people heat cannabis concentrates and inhale the vapor. According to recent national survey data, about 43.8 million people in the US ages 12 and older (more than 15 percent) had used cannabis in the past 30 days. 

Led by NYU Langone Health researchers, the study showed that 48 percent mainly smoked, 21 percent both smoked and vaped, 17 percent mainly used edibles, and 14 percent, the “polymodal group,” used cannabis in nearly every form. 

Published online August 8 in the journal Addictive Behaviors, the work showed that about half of the polymodal group used cannabis every day. By comparison, 28 percent of those who mostly smoked, 31 percent of those who smoked and vaped, and about 13 percent of those who mostly ate edibles used cannabis every day. Cannabis use disorder, the clinical term for related addiction, followed the same pattern, affecting about 67 percent of polymodal users versus 36 percent of those who primarily smoked, 47 percent of those who smoked and vaped, and 15 percent of those who mainly consumed edibles. 

“Our findings suggest that using cannabis in multiple forms may be a red flag for heavier use and symptoms of addiction,” said study lead author Omar El-Shahawy, MD, PhD, MPH, an assistant professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “Asking patients not only whether but how they use cannabis could help clinicians identify when a fuller assessment may be warranted.” 

In the first national study to examine how these methods naturally cluster, the researchers analyzed data from 17,732 adults who reported using cannabis in the past month on the 2022–2023 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The authors used a statistical approach that grouped participants based on their reported patterns. 

The results also revealed that types of cannabis users varied demographically. Nearly 1 in 3 people in the smoking-and-vaping and polymodal groups were young adults ages 18 to 25, compared with about 1 in 6 of those who mainly smoked. More than half of the edibles group were women, and edibles were especially prevalent among college graduates. Since the researchers did not examine why participants chose particular methods of cannabis use, the reason behind these patterns remains uncertain, said Dr. El-Shahawy. 

Another key finding was that people who smoked cannabis were more likely to also smoke cigarettes, compared with those who mainly vaped or used edibles. Both cigarette and cannabis smoke involve combustion (burning), which can be hard on the lungs, so doing both may add to their overall health risks.

“The strong tie between smoking cannabis and smoking cigarettes is of concern because this subset of people are breathing in a wider range of chemicals via combustion, and their lungs are at risk,” said senior author Joseph J. Palamar, PhD, MPH, a professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. 

“Public health messages about cannabis still focus mostly on smoking, but people now use the drug in many different ways,” said Dr. El-Shahawy. “For younger adults, that means talking about the risks of vaping and combining multiple forms, while for people who prefer edibles, the message is to ‘start low and go slow’ because the effects take time to kick in.”

According to Dr. El-Shahawy, the team next plans to examine why people choose one method over another—for example, whether those who favor edibles are using cannabis for pain or sleep. 

The researchers cautioned that the findings rely on the participants’ self-reports of their cannabis use and that some use may have been underreported. In addition, the study could not establish cause and effect. 

Funding for the study was provided by the National Institutes of Health grant R01DA055675. 

In addition to Drs. El-Shahawy and Palamar, NYU Langone researchers involved in the study were Mohsen Abbasi-Kangevari, MD, MPH; Michelle He; and Xiaoying Zheng. Another study co-investigator was Neal Doran, PhD, at the University of California, San Diego. 

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About NYU Langone Health
NYU Langone Health is a fully integrated health system that consistently achieves the best patient outcomes through a rigorous focus on quality that has resulted in some of the lowest mortality rates in the nation. Vizient Inc. has ranked NYU Langone No. 1 out of 118 comprehensive academic medical centers across the nation four years in a row, and it continues to have the most No. 1– and top 10–ranked specialties among medical centers in the United States, according to U.S. News & World Report. NYU Langone offers a comprehensive range of medical services with one high standard of care across seven inpatient locations, its Perlmutter Cancer Center, and more than 330 outpatient locations in the New York City area and Florida. The system also includes two tuition-free medical schools, in Manhattan and on Long Island, and a vast research enterprise

 

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Journal

Addictive Behaviors

DOI

10.1016/j.addbeh.2026.108829 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Cannabis use modalities are associated with sociodemographic characteristics and patterns of cannabis use among US adults: A latent class analysis

Article Publication Date

8-Aug-2026

Trends in the prevalence and severity of alcohol and cannabis use disorders among US adults

JAMA Psychiatry

About the Study:

 In this cross-sectional study of 186,823 US adults, moderate-to-severe cannabis use disorder prevalence increased from 2021 through 2024 among males and females, while moderate-to-severe alcohol use disorder prevalence remained largely stable. The findings highlight diverging trends in cannabis and alcohol use disorders across age and sex groups.

Corresponding Author: Nora D. Volkow, MD, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, 3WFN Room 09D20, MSC 6025, 301 N Stonestreet Ave, Bethesda, MD 20892 (nvolkow@nida.nih.gov).

10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2026.2497

To access the embargoed study: Visit our JAMA Network Media Center at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

Link to the article in your story
We encourage you to link out to this article in your story using the link below. It includes an access token that will give free access to the article for your readers up to one year after publication. (The link will be live after the article publishes and embargo is lifted.)

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2026.2497?guestAccessKey=a9210591-55b9-4b64-847e-21cd920ce217&utm_source=for_the_media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=081926

Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including full author list, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

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Journal

JAMA Psychiatry

 

Nearly half of intoxicating hemp posts on Instagram use youth-oriented marketing; Just 2.5% carry warnings

Public Health Institute

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Oakland, CA—Brands selling intoxicating hemp products such as Delta-8 THC are using memes, cartoons and pop-culture references to market on Instagram while rarely warning about health risks or age limits, according to a new study in the journal Addiction.

Researchers analyzed 837 Instagram posts published between February 2024 and February 2025 from nine leading brands of products containing intoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoids (intoxicating hemp) such as Delta-8 THC, HHC and THC-P. Prior research shows that cannabis marketing, especially on social media, increases both positive perceptions of cannabis and its use, and that youth-oriented visuals are particularly appealing to young audiences.

Key findings:

• Nearly half of posts included youth-oriented content. Imagery and cultural cues such as memes, cartoons and pop-culture references appeared in 49.6% of the 837 posts analyzed.
• Recreational marketing was widespread. Fifty-two percent of posts promoted effects like relaxation and happiness or showed products in everyday social and leisure settings.
• Safety information was rare. Health and age warnings appeared in just 2.5% of posts.
• Appeals varied by product type. Beverage posts were the most aggressive—84.3% used recreational themes and 56.9% youth-oriented themes—followed by cartridges and vapes (53.5% youth-oriented) and edibles (49.2%).

“These findings show how brands selling intoxicating hemp products target youth audiences with dangerously few safeguards,” said Alisa A. Padon, Ph.D., a study co-author and research director of Getting it Right from the Start (GIRFTS), a program of the Public Health Institute. “As Congress considers the future of these products, maintaining the federal prohibition scheduled to take effect in November is critical. Additionally, regulations that set standards for social media content are needed to restrict marketing these products to young people.”

The nine brands evaluated were CannaAid, Cycling Frog, Delta Extrax, Elyxr, Fly Urb, Hometown Hero, Koi CBD, Mood and Official Canna River. Researchers coded each post for product descriptions and imagery, recreational appeals, youth-oriented cues, brand positioning, health claims and health and age warnings. The analysis builds on previous research by Dr. Padon and colleagues, which identified elements of cannabis marketing that appeal to young people.

Use of intoxicating hemp products has grown in the United States in recent years, alongside reported poisonings, emergency department visits and psychotic episodes. The study authors note that largely underregulated social media marketing may be contributing to that growth.

The findings come at a pivotal moment for federal policy. In 2025, Congress closed the 2018 Farm Bill loophole that let intoxicating hemp-derived products proliferate outside many of the safeguards governing state-regulated cannabis markets. Public Law 119-37, effective November 12, 2026, prohibits these products by narrowing the federal definition of hemp and capping THC per package. Those protections now face renewed challenges: the Senate has passed a bill—awaiting House approval—delaying the restrictions to December 11, 2026, and separate legislation (H.R. 9830) would replace the prohibition outright with a permissive framework allowing high THC levels and certain synthesized THC types.

“For years, public health experts warned that the loophole created by the 2018 Farm Bill would lead to a largely unregulated market for intoxicating hemp products, including products that are easily accessible and appealing to young people. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened,” said Lynn Silver, M.D., MPH, director of GIRFTS, who was not involved in the study. “Replacing the prohibition set forth in Public Law 119-37 with a new permissive regulatory framework will create a backdoor to a federally legal market for intoxicating THC products, bypassing both the state-regulated legal cannabis systems and state prohibitions. This study demonstrates why maintaining the federal prohibition is so important.”

Study:

La Capria K, Meng S, Padon AA, Tillett KK, Donaldson SI, Allem JP, Rossheim ME, LoParco C, Berg CJ, Jackson KM, Chen-Sankey J. Marketing Features of Derived Intoxicating Cannabinoid Product Brands on Instagram: A Content Analysis. Addiction. 2026 Aug. volume/issue/pages. doi: (number)

To request an interview with Dr. Padon or Dr. Silver, contact Renate Myles or Katie Mullan at media@phi.org or 510-368-9077.

The Public Health Institute is a national independent nonprofit that advances the health and wellbeing of all people and communities, particularly those facing the greatest barriers. Rooted in 60 years of public health experience, PHI moves ideas into action through practice, policy, research and community engagement, while serving as the operational backbone for more than 40 programs delivering evidence-based solutions to complex health challenges. For more information, visit www.phi.org.

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Journal

Addiction

DOI

10.1111/add.70576 

Method of Research

Content analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Marketing Features of Derived Intoxicating Cannabinoid Product Brands on Instagram: A Content Analysis

Article Publication Date

19-Aug-2026

COI Statement

Alisa A. Padon, Ph.D., reports no conflicts of interest

Leading hemp-derived cannabinoid brands lean on lifestyle and youth appeals on social media

Rutgers researchers find frequent recreational and youth-oriented themes, but limited safety information, in Instagram marketing

Rutgers University

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Brands that market hemp-derived, intoxicating cannabinoid products are capitalizing on lack of oversight on social media platforms to reach consumers, according to Rutgers Health researchers.

Since the passage of the 2018 U.S. Farm Bill, use of these products — Delta-8 THC, HHC and THC-P delivered as edibles, beverages, vapes, concentrates and extracts — has been on the rise throughout the United States. Brand marketing on social media, which is largely underregulated, may contribute to this growth.

The study, published in the journal Addiction, evaluated the marketing features used by leading brands on social media to inform consumer protection and youth prevention strategies, as well as public health policy responses.

 

“Stronger standards are needed to restrict content that is potentially misleading and directed at youth and even reconsider whether commercial brands that market intoxicating substances should be permitted to maintain social media accounts,” said Julia Chen-Sankey, an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health.

 

The researchers analyzed 837 Instagram posts published by accounts representing nine leading brands between February 2024 and February 2025. They evaluated the posts for key marketing themes, including product descriptions, recreational appeals, imagery oriented for youth 18 and younger, health claims and safety warnings.

They found the brands placed an emphasis on lifestyle and recreational marketing, with minimal attention given to consumer safety warnings. Product description and imagery were featured in 75% of posts and 52% showed recreational images that depicted hemp-derived, intoxicating cannabinoid products as part of daily routines and social or leisure experiences. Youth-oriented imagery, such as memes, cartoons and pop culture references, were present in nearly 50% of the posts.

The marketing approach varied by product type. Cannabis beverages were the most heavily promoted product category, with 97% featuring product imagery, 84% emphasizing recreational themes, 57% using youth-oriented appeals and 40% focusing on brand positioning. Youth-focused themes also were prominent in posts marketing vapes and cartridges (54%) and edibles (49%). Recreational themes were common in posts for edibles (61%) and pre-rolls or blunts (53%).

 

The researchers said social media platforms’ policies use broad and vague language regarding restrictions on the sale and promotion of cannabis and THC products. This ambiguity allows brands to continue posting content that, while not directly selling these products, may still promote their use among young people.

 

“Although this study focused on Instagram, similar indirect marketing practices warrant closer examination on platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and TikTok,” said Chen-Sankey, a co-author of the study.

 

Approximately half of the posts included youth-oriented elements, such as cartoon imagery, memes, and influencers, is notable given the reported increase in hemp-derived, intoxicating cannabinoid product use in youth, the researchers said.

 

“Although many states prohibit youth-appealing marketing strategies, these restrictions do not explicitly extend to hemp-derived, intoxicating cannabinoid products or to social media platforms, where regulatory oversight and enforcement remain limited,” said co-author Kathryn La Capria, a research associate at Rutgers Institute for Nicotine and Tobacco Studies. “Age restrictions limiting who could view brand social media content and notices that products were for adults aged 21 or older were rarely observed, leaving much of the content accessible to underage users, potentially increasing youth exposure to content that normalizes use among young people.”

 

U.S. Public Law 119-37 effectively prohibits intoxicating hemp-derived products that are currently sold commercially by narrowing the federal definition of hemp and maximum THC per package. However, the researchers cautioned that brands with established social media audiences may continue using indirect lifestyle and brand marketing even as the product marketplace changes.

 

“These findings highlight important gaps in platform policies and enforcement,” Chen-Sankey said. “In addition to maintaining the prohibition on intoxicating hemp products set forth in Public Law 119-37, regulators and social media companies need clearer standards addressing youth-oriented features, such as cartoons and memes, as well as potentially misleading health claims and inadequate safety information.”

 

Other Rutgers authors include Siyan Meng, Scott Donaldson and Jon-Patrick Allem.

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Journal

Addiction

Method of Research

Content analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Marketing Features of Derived Intoxicating Cannabinoid Product Brands on Instagram: A Content Analysis

Article Publication Date

19-Aug-2026

COI Statement

Matthew E. Rossheim manages an independent consulting firm and receives compensation for presentations and consultations, including expert work in litigation against the alcohol, cannabis, tobacco, nitrous oxide, and kratom industries. Neither the author nor his consulting firm accepts funding from these industries.