The roll-your-own cigarette market in Canada: a cross-sectional exploratory study

Data from the 2002 Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey (CTUMS) were used to examine RYO tobacco use among 23,341 Canadians aged 15 and older. Logistic regression models were conducted to examine factors which differentiate smokers who smoke RYO tobacco all of the time, most of the time or sometimes from smokers who do not smoke RYO tobacco.We found that 17% (n = 925,000) of current smokers in Canada reported smoking RYO. When compared to manufactured cigarette (MC) smokers, RYO users were heavier smokers, more addicted to nicotine, and less likely to consider quitting smoking. Lower income smokers were more likely to smoke RYO tobacco compared to smokers with high income. Conversely, smokers who had completed secondary school or university were less likely to smoke RYO tobacco compared to smokers who had not completed secondary school.This study demonstrates that RYO tobacco use is not a negligible problem within Canada and provides valuable new insight for developing future tobacco control initiatives for this population of smokers.Even though the use of roll-your-own cigarettes (RYO) has declined in recent decades [1,2], RYO remains important. For instance, RYO smokers tend to believe that RYO cigarettes are less harmful compared to factory-made (FM) cigarettes [1] despite evidence to suggest that RYO smokers are actually at increased risk for certain cancers [3-5]. RYO smokers also tend to have lower incomes than smokers of FM cigarettes [1], and since fine-cut tobacco used to make RYO cigarettes are taxed at a lower rate than FM cigarettes in Canada, smokers may compensate for price increases by shifting from FM cigarettes to RYO instead of quitting or reducing consumption [2]. Moreover, when you consider that RYO smokers tend to be heavier smokers and less likely to consider quitting smoking compared to FM cigarette smokers [1], it is apparent that this high-risk smoking population should be a priority for tobacco control.Another reason why RYO use remains i