FDA moves to ban sales of menthol cigarettes

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday announced a plan to ban sales of menthol-flavored cigarettes in the United States, a measure many public health experts hailed as the government's most meaningful action in more than a decade of tobacco control efforts.

The ban would most likely have the deepest impact on Black smokers, nearly 85% of whom use menthol cigarettes, compared with 29% of white smokers, according to a government survey. If effective in reducing smoking, the ban could significantly diminish the burden of chronic disease and limit the number of lives cut short.

Menthol cigarettes make up about one-third of the $80 billion U.S. cigarette market, and about 18.5 million Americans smoke them. Banning the flavor “would help prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers and help adult smokers quit,” said Xavier Becerra, the health and human services secretary, adding that it would significantly reduce tobacco-related deaths among Black people.

The proposed ban was announced after a frenzy of lobbying by tobacco and retail interests. Kingsley Wheaton, chief marketing officer of British American Tobacco, which owns Reynolds, the leading seller of menthol cigarettes in the United States, said the company believed there were more effective ways to reduce the risk of tobacco than banning menthol.

If the U.S.' experience mirrors that of Canada after it banned menthol cigarettes, 1.3 million people would quit smoking and potentially hundreds of thousands of premature deaths could be averted, said Geoffrey Fong, principal investigator of the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project.

The ban does not cover menthol e-cigarettes. The FDA is currently reviewing all vaping products being sold in the United States to determine whether to allow them to stay on the market.

The blueprint for the ban will be published as a proposed regulation in the May 4 Federal Register and will be open for public comments for at least 60 days after that, then finalized with possible revisions. The FDA said it would also convene listening sessions to engage with the public on the proposal in June.

It is expected that it will take a least a year to go into effect. Tobacco companies are likely to contest the rule in court, which could result in a long legal battle and more delay.