After an undergraduate class taught by Dr. Myung-Bae Park at Yonsei University, Mirae Campus in South Korea, one of Park’s students came up to him. This student, who worked part-time at a convenience store, wanted Park’s advice.

“The student told me that they could smell the cigarettes being sold,” Park said. “In South Korea, cigarettes are sold through convenience store displays and are placed closest to the counter.”

Typically, people are concerned about nicotine exposure during and after cigarettes are smoked. After hearing his student’s story, however, Park wondered if cigarettes could emit nicotine while still inside an unopened box. He decided to conduct a study to find out. His study is the first to measure nicotine off-gassing from unopened cigarette packages.

Park measured the amount of nicotine in the air in 95 convenience stores throughout South Korea. He placed an air monitor near the cigarette case in each store and another on the opposite side of the store.

As he expected, the monitors closer to the cigarette case in each store reported higher nicotine concentrations in the air. This suggests that the unlit, packaged cigarettes do release nicotine into the air, exposing employees and customers.

“There were no major surprises,” Park said. “The results were as predicted.”

Park also recorded the ventilation in each convenience store. He found most stores had the same amount of nicotine regardless of how well they were ventilated, suggesting ventilation does not protect people from nicotine exposure from off-gassing unlit cigarettes.

In the future, Park is interested to research if nicotine from unlit cigarettes sticks to surfaces, such as the checkout counter, display shelves, or even people.

“We only measured nicotine in the air. It is necessary to verify if these substances adhere to or are absorbed by people,” Park said. He plans to directly measure store employees’ nicotine surface exposure from unlit cigarettes. He also wants to perform a similar study with vapes and heated tobacco products.

In the meantime, Park recommends stores to wear nitrile gloves when handling boxes of cigarettes. Of course, the best way for employees and customers to avoid nicotine exposure is for convenience stores to stop selling commercial tobacco products.

Click here to read the research study.

Click here to read an article about the study.