Declaration of Interests promotion info Dr. Heffner has served as a consultant for Pfizer, Inc. and has received research support from Nabi Biopharmaceuticals and Pfizer. Dr. Winhusen and Mr. Lewis have no financial disclosures to report.
Both smokers and non-smokers report concerns with the physical presence of secondhand smoke (SHS); they consider the smell unpleasant and take steps to avoid exposure (Pilkington, Gray, Gilmore, & Daykin, 2006; Kaufman, Griffin, Cohen, Perkins, & Ferrence, 2010; Eckler, 2011). In the 1990s, prior to the widespread adoption of clean indoor air laws, public concerns about lingering SHS odors on clothing were as common as reported concerns about the health consequences of SHS exposure (Biener & Fitzgerald, 1999).

The heightened public knowledge of SHS health effects, and demand for smoke-free spaces provided a motivation for the tobacco industry to produce cigarettes that reduced the aversive qualities of SHS (Begany, 2000). Since the 1970s, tobacco companies have created and sold a variety of cigarette products that incorporate patented design features and/or additives to disguise cigarette smoke by reducing odor or visibility, thus rendering the smoke less unpleasant both to smokers and to non-smokers (Connolly, Wayne, Lymperis, & Doherty, 2000; Ling & Glantz, 2005). Tobacco manufacturers have used the term ��less smoke smell�� (LSS) to promote cigarettes designed to reduce SHS odor or visibility (Collier, 2008). In 2007 a Japan Tobacco Inc (JTI) subsidiary, JTI-Macdonald, introduced the brand Mirage to the Canadian market.

JTI-Macdonald claimed that Mirage was the first brand in the country to use LSS Technology (Collier, 2008). Print ads promoting the brand explained that Mirage cigarettes had ��less lingering tobacco smoke smell in an enclosed area when compared to a typical Canadian cigarette�� (Tobacco International, 2008). The Mirage product used a flavorant described in the patent ��Method of fixing flavorant which improves sidestream smoke smell of tobacco and cigarette,�� (Miyauchi, Nagae, Tanabe, & Nakano, 2011). The patent describes the innovation as having a ��smell-improving agent�� comprising of an ethanol or propylene glycol solution applied to the cigarette paper. Tobacco control advocates in Canada were concerned that the Mirage brand, with its vanilla scented SHS, could potentially undermine efforts made to ensure people smoke outside their homes and vehicles so others are not exposed to SHS (CanWest News Service, 2007). The first report on industry Batimastat use of technologies and additives used to mask cigarette smoke included a history of these innovations as discovered through a review of internal industry documents and information from patents published up until 1996 (Connolly et al., 2000).