Machine smoking cigars is intended to produce product rankings for emissions. Although not representative of human smoking, experimental artefacts suppressing yields impacting rankings must be avoided. Some small cigars/cigarillos have plastic tips at the mouth, and are expected to be used as supplied. Obtaining a leak-tight seal around the tip for analytical machine smoking is a practical difficulty. In such cases it is common practice to remove the tip from the mouth end, potentially changing emission data.

Smoking machine cigar holders can be complex and involve multiple parts and latex sleeves. An alternative universal smoking machine adaptor (USMA) has been developed by the Ohio State University (OSU) that is suitable for a wide range of rigid and compressible tobacco products using a small number of parts and simple compression methodology. This adaptor allows the comparison of a small cigar/cigarillo with and without the presence of the tip. In this study the potential error in reported yields introduced by plastic tip removal before machine smoking small cigars/cigarillos was investigated.

A selected tipped cigarillo was machine smoked, using CORESTA methodology, with tip using the USMA and without tip using both a conventional cigar adaptor and the USMA. Butt termination was 33 mm from the mouth end according to CORESTA methodology. Mass consumed, TPM, puff count and nicotine content were compared. These show a marked difference in emissions. Typical mass of stick consumed using a standard cigar holder is 1.6 grammes whilst using the USMA 2.07 grammes, nicotine yield from the USMA is 16 % higher than the method without tip, puffs 28 % higher, and TPM 20 % greater. Repeatability is comparable for the two holders.

Consumer use without the plastic tip is not credible, removing the plastic tip for machine smoking suppresses reported yields and “rankings” may therefore be compromised.