FDA vows to push ban on menthol cigarettes

Agency: Move would prevent death, disease, especially among African Americans

WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday it would move to ban menthol tobacco cigarettes and flavored cigars, a historic step it said would significantly prevent death and disease, particularly among Black Americans.

A ban would “significantly reduce youth initiation, increase the chances of smoking cessation among current smokers, and address health disparities experienced by communities of color, low-income populations, and LGBTQ+ individuals, all of whom are far more likely to use these tobacco products,” acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said in a statement.

Studies have shown that 7 of 10 Black youths who smoke use menthol. More than 90% of Black adults who smoke began by using menthol cigarettes in comparison to less than 45% of white adults, according to another study.

The FDA said it is working to propose regulations banning the menthol flavor within the next year, a move that could lead more than 900,000 smokers, including more than 200,000 Black Americans, to quit within the first year and a half of a ban, its statement said.

The move is in response to a lawsuit filed last summer by medical groups, including the American Medical Association, that aimed to force a final decision on a ban and alleged that regulators “unreasonably delayed” a response to a 2013 citizen petition urging a ban.

Congress in 2009 banned the sale of most flavored cigarettes, except the popular menthol flavor, after industry lobbyists negotiated an exemption. Lawmakers instructed the FDA to study the impact of menthol in cigarettes and deferred further action to the regulatory agency, a “political decision that allowed a deadly product aimed at African Americans to continue to claim lives unjustly,” Richard E. Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, wrote in an op-ed last week.

AMA president Susan Bailey, in a statement to the Los Angeles Times, described the Thursday announcement as a “major step toward preventing a new generation from becoming tobacco users, and saving lives.”

Last year, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives approved a bill to ban the sale of flavored e-cigarettes and menthol cigarettes. But the measure did not progress in the Republicancontrolled Senate.

Any FDA action on menthol cigarettes is likely to be challenged by the tobacco industry, with one of the largest producers and marketers of tobacco products saying that “criminalizing menthol will lead to serious unintended consequences.”