9 ms·

The FDA is proposing a ban on menthol cigarettes

35 points by bluedino 5y ago

atlasunshrugged 5y ago
I read a bit about this yesterday and it's really annoying to me. On one hand I totally understand the idea--tobacco is super harmful and kills hundreds of thousands of Americans every year and menthol seems to be more of a 'gateway' into tobacco use than traditional tobacco but at the same time this feels highly paternalistic and condescending to black communities (who are one of the key populations referenced in admin/fda talks about the need for this bill). I'm much more of a fan of using pigouvian taxes to try to drive desired outcomes but let people who really want to engage in a behavior do so, as long as they pay the true cost of that behavior.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 5y ago
  I’m actually a proponent of this only because it brings menthol in line with the rest of the FDA’s enforcement on the matter. Back in my smoking days, I used to like Djarum Blacks (a brand of clove cigarette). Around the start of the 2010’s the FDA banned all sales of flavored cigarettes, ostensibly to “protect the children”, obviously. Menthol cigarettes, arguably the smoothest and easiest to smoke cigarette that serves to make smoking more approachable, were very notably exempted from that ban. As an anecdote, my wife when she smoked found every non-menthol flavored cigarette to be disgusting and only smoked menthol. Djarum Blacks and many other smaller cigarette brands and types fell under the ban. Djarum Blacks were forced to wrap their cigarettes in different paper and rebrand them as an inferior “cigar” product and other brands disappeared entirely. People, myself included, shifted their smoking habit to arguably worse-for-you menthol cigarettes, sold primarily by Big Tobacco. The exemption was one of the biggest Big Tobacco handouts of the 21st century, the other one being the enforcement of chemical certification of vape products.
  - gavinray 5y ago
    My mom used to smoke cloves when I was a little kid on occasion, and I remember that cigarettes smelled disgusting but damn those cloves smelled delicious. I never wound up trying one as an adult (I've tried regular/mentholated cigarettes, both disgusting but I'm glad I know for sure). Cloves are banned now?
    - SOLAR_FIELDS 5y ago
      They are still sold, but they are called “Filtered Clove Cigars” now and are not as good - among several things: they are harder to draw now, they lost a lot of the characteristic “firecracker” pop (a popping noise that happens as the cloves burn that’s very similar to wood settling in a campfire) and are harsher to smoke. I suspect if one wanted to find them in their original, better form the easiest thing to do would be to import them from Indonesia somehow - the kretek, which is the Indonesian name for the clove cigarette, originated from there and it’s an extremely popular cigarette in Indonesia.
  - jrs235 5y ago
    And if I recall correctly, one argument for not banning menthol cigarettes was because it would affect the black community disproportionately! What if we didn't look at anything but health outcomes (and liberties)? (I probably prefer the vice tax... as long as the public is expected to pay for the health issues of individuals who make crappy choices...)
    - robonerd 5y ago
      > And if I recall correctly, one argument for not banning menthol cigarettes was because it would affect the black community disproportionately! A narrative cynically bought and paid for by tobacco industry propagandists: > The disproportionate toll of menthol cigarettes among African Americans compared with the general population is a social injustice. The black community has long been subjected to the predatory marketing of mentholated tobacco products, particularly in lower income areas, where there are not only more advertisements, but more promotions and cheaper prices for menthol cigarettes when compared with more affluent neighbourhoods.7 Tobacco companies also heavily rely on their cooptation of community leaders to defuse tobacco control efforts.8 Black-led organisations with financial ties to the tobacco industry have played a critical role in disseminating misinformation throughout the black community. Such misinformation, for example, includes the idea that local policies prohibiting the sale of mentholated tobacco products are racist and will increase the criminalisation of individuals who possess or smoke them, exploiting legitimate concerns about racist policing to defend the tobacco industry’s targeted predation on the black community. PDF: https://www.savingblacklives.org/_files/ugd/29e3b2_51eb6e3ea3284d40b1e9322915cf8b82.pdf https://www.savingblacklives.org/_files/ugd/29e3b2_51eb6e3ea...
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    .. before "EarthShine" or after?
- lazyier 5y ago
  It should be more than annoying. It is a denial of human autonomy.
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    "denial of autonomy" is probably the least useful way to criticize a law, there are hundreds of necessary laws that plainly deny autonomy
  - smt88 5y ago
    It doesn't stop people from making their own menthol cigarettes. It just stops companies from profiting from killing people with them.
- tialaramex 5y ago
  > pigouvian taxes to try to drive desired outcomes It's an attractive idea, but we're talking about the US so there are two big problems: * AFAIK the FDA does not actually have tax raising powers, and it's not going to get granted any tax raising powers, so now instead of an FDA intervention you're relying on Congress to do something. Good luck with that. * Most tax powers which do exist lie with States, and States are always cash poor, so a "pigouvian" tax quickly becomes a must-have revenue stream. Then one of the two bad things happens. The State encourages the sin you wanted people to stop, because that drives tax revenue, or worse the State gradually adds stuff which isn't a sin to the same tax. You wake up and either there's a TV advert paid for by the State explaining how "A pack a day helps Maggie keep her lungs strong and local schools benefit!" or else you discover that the milk on your breakfast cereal now includes "Menthol tax" because "Menthol" now includes "Dairy products, root vegetables, writing paper and non-religious ornaments" after the State found a hole in its budget.
  - chad___homenim 5y ago
    > big problems > so now instead of an FDA intervention you're relying on Congress to do something Yes, that's the entire point of our system of government. We are not governed by executive dictate, rather by laws created by elected representatives beholden to their constituents. This is not a "big problem," it is a cornerstone for preventing your rights from being trampled upon. The straw man you write about your local state doing this is something you invented in your head.
- CharlesW 5y ago
  > I'm much more of a fan of using pigouvian taxes to try to drive desired outcomes but let people who really want to engage in a behavior do so, as long as they pay the true cost of that behavior. How do pigouvian taxes address the problem, which is that Big Tobacco is using flavored products to target kids and people of color?
  - atlasunshrugged 5y ago
    Because higher prices on more elastic products, especially for price constrained consumers like youth and lower income people, are correlated with decreased usage of such products. https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/assets/factsheets/0146.pdf https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/assets/factsheets/0146.pdf
Bostonian 5y ago
https://reason.com/2022/04/28/the-fdas-menthol-cigarette-ban-is-a-racial-justice-issue-but-not-in-the-way-its-supporters-mean/ https://reason.com/2022/04/28/the-fdas-menthol-cigarette-ban... In addition to condescending assumptions, the FDA is displaying remarkable shortsightedness regarding the practical impact of its policy on the community it supposedly is trying to help. "Policies that amount to prohibition for adults will have serious racial justice implications," the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Drug Policy Alliance, the Sentencing Project, and 24 other organizations warned in an April 2021 letter to Becerra and Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock. "Such a ban will trigger criminal penalties, which will disproportionately impact people of color, as well as prioritize criminalization over public health and harm reduction. A ban will also lead to unconstitutional policing and other negative interactions with local law enforcement." The ACLU letter noted that "a menthol cigarette ban would disproportionately impact communities of color, result in criminalization of the market, and exacerbate mass incarceration." The ban "also risks creating large underground, illegal markets." That "would be a massive law enforcement problem for states, counties, and cities, since all states treat unlicensed sale of tobacco products as a crime—usually as a felony punishable by imprisonment."
- j16sdiz 5y ago
  This is disturbing. Almost all ban disproportionally impact people with lower social economical status. Every fine impacts less weathy people more. Does this meant we should stop all ban?
  - atlasunshrugged 5y ago
    I believe in Norway or Finland they have tiered fines based on income level to counter that, specifically for driving fines I believe, which seems like another option (although a hard one to do for a consumer product not sold in government stores... maybe tobacco shops will go the way of alcohol shops becoming government run in some states)
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      The F is the point of busting my ass to work some stupid office job and be financially stable if a minor transgressions is just as ruinous as when I was a janitor? The way you fix the fact that some people are crippled and others aren't isn't to shoot everyone else in the leg. The ONLY redeeming feature of such policy is that the people who dutifully report each and every cent of income are hit harder than the people who take the "I'll report what they know about" approach and most of the people who support these policies tend to be in the former group and that's pretty paltry as far as silver linings go.
x3ro 5y ago
In the EU, menthol cigarettes have been banned for about two years now. The main argument appears to be that it makes it easier / less unpleasant to smoke [1, in german], thus it makes it easier for people to start smoking. Anecdotally, this aligns with my own experience. At the age of 13 or so, the first cigarettes I smoked were menthol, because the other ones were simply too gross. Luckily I never started smoking proper, but I can definitely see the danger. Edit: Note that I'm not trying to relativize the situation in the US by saying "the EU did it too". I'm just providing an additional data point. Edit 2: I'm curious though, as to why people would not simply start smoking "normal" cigarettes if menthol ones were banned. Could someone elaborate on this? Are menthol cigarettes just _really_ popular in communities of color in the US? Here in Germany, I rarely saw anyone above the age of 25 ever smoking them at all. [1]: https://www.bfr.bund.de/de/presseinformation/2020/19/aus_fuer_menthol_in_zigaretten_und_rauchtabak-246580.html https://www.bfr.bund.de/de/presseinformation/2020/19/aus_fue...
- bombcar 5y ago
  People would still smoke normal cigarettes, in the groups I was in during college nobody smoked menthols but they certainly had opinions about cigarettes, including the manufacturing location of even the same brand. The world needs to come to a decision of the side-effects of cigarettes are something we're willing to accept. We've already made that decision on alcohol, though arguably its effects are more closely tied to the moment of consumption.
- robonerd 5y ago
  > At the age of 13 or so, the first cigarettes I smoked were menthol, because the other ones were simply too gross. This is by design. The tobacco industry researched the matter themselves years ago, found the level of menthol that teenagers prefer the most, and adjusted their product formulations accordingly. > I'm curious though, as to why people would not simply start smoking "normal" cigarettes if menthol ones were banned. Kids who start 'experimentally' smoking are more likely to stick with it (subsequently developing an addiction) if they smoke menthol cigarettes, specifically because the anesthetic and analgesic effects of menthol make the experience less unpleasant for them. The tobacco industry figured this out and specifically reformulated their cigarettes to optimize for this. They are murderers.
bennyp101 5y ago
The UK banned it in May 2020 so nearly 2 years ago. It actually helped me stop smoking, as I was using menthol filters in my rollies, as I had become not super keen on “plain” taste. Interestingly, when I searched for when the ban was introduced there was a BBC article from 2018 saying “ Tobacco shares hit by US menthol ban fear” I guess it’s coming round again
- atlasunshrugged 5y ago
  Yes, but didn't the UK do it in concert with an effort to promote harm reduction products (e.g. vapes, nicotine gum)? I spent a lot of time in London before covid and felt like there were more stores selling vape products than I would see in the US and much higher taxes on traditional tobacco products than in most U.S. states
  - bennyp101 5y ago
    Yea, tax on tobacco is high. They did also ban packs of 10 cigs, and smaller pouches of baccy. But yes, lots of vape shops came and went in my local town, some tried to be bars or cafes, but it seems just small stores now.
    - atlasunshrugged 5y ago
      Interesting! I've never heard of packs of 10 cigs, was that just a marketing ploy to make them more affordable?
- fithisux 5y ago
  What helped me to stop smoking is the realization that governments are the real drug dealers.
lbj 5y ago
You can't help but feel loved when you see the great lengths governments go to, to act like our parents. /s
bluescrn 5y ago
With cigarettes closer to exterminated, how long until we face a new era of alcohol prohibition?
- atlasunshrugged 5y ago
  Never, although we may end up only being able to drink sparkling seltzers, white claws, and whatever is in vogue with DC staffers /s
- Retric 5y ago
  Drug policy is not moving in one direction, pot is becoming dramatically more accessible over time.
  - Drblessing 5y ago
    Legalize pot, cocaine, mushrooms, ketamine, and psychedelics.
- zarzavat 5y ago
  Many drugs can have adverse social effects that are often made worse by prohibition, but smoking is the only one that I can think of that directly poisons other people in the general vicinity of the user. It’s rather special in that regard.
0xbadcafebee 5y ago
I'm curious how the black community will respond. Menthols are an ingrained part of Black culture in America. This BBC article talks about the controversy, particularly from the Black community's perspective: "Why the proposed US ban on menthol cigarettes is controversial" (2021) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56934957 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56934957 "How Menthol Cigarettes Became Black Americans’ Preferred Smoke" (2021) https://slate.com/technology/2021/05/menthol-cigarette-ban-fda-public-health-black-americans.html https://slate.com/technology/2021/05/menthol-cigarette-ban-f... "How the tobacco industry targeted Black Americans with menthol smokes" (2022) https://www.npr.org/2022/04/29/1095291808/tobacco-industry-targeted-black-americans-with-menthols https://www.npr.org/2022/04/29/1095291808/tobacco-industry-t... ^ That article talks about how flavored cigarettes were banned in 2008, except for Menthols. This other article from the time explicitly notes how legislators were fine with capitulating on Menthols as long as they got other cigarettes off the market. Which to me smacks of basically not caring what happens to Black smokers. "Cigarette Bill Treats Menthol With Leniency" (2008) https://archive.ph/W3o4z https://archive.ph/W3o4z "The Menthol Movement: How Tobacco Became a Racial Justice Issue" (2022) https://www.communitysolutions.com/menthol-movement-tobacco-became-racial-justice-issue/ https://www.communitysolutions.com/menthol-movement-tobacco-... And: "How Big Tobacco used George Floyd and Eric Garner to stoke fear among Black smokers" https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-04-25/inside-big-tobaccos-strategy-to-stoke-fear-among-black-smokers-facing-menthol-bans https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-04-25/inside... Since last summer, the Los Angeles Times and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism have tracked strategic efforts across the country by Reynolds American to keep menthol cigarettes in the hands of smokers. The company has hired a team of Black lobbyists and consultants, including former congressman Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), and sponsored the organization led by civil rights activist and MSNBC political show host the Rev. Al Sharpton. Those figures have in turn stoked fears among Black communities about what the bans could mean. Reynolds American for years has enlisted prominent Black personalities in its lobbying efforts. This investigation has uncovered new details about how individuals and organizations working on Reynolds’ behalf have failed to properly declare their links to the company. Lobbyists for the company in Denver successfully killed a bill that would have banned menthol cigarettes. And in Los Angeles, protesters were paid to attend a rally organized by a group with close ties to the company. So the "controversy" seems to be astroturfing by the cigarette industry. Never underestimate the tactics of an evil organization, I guess?
jcranberry 5y ago
I remember my first pack of cigarettes were camel menthols when I was around 16? I never got into the habit but it makes sense to me.
turzmo 5y ago
Sorry -- only tangentially related to the article, but what are HN's thoughts on other nicotine delivery systems (vape pens, etc.)?
- atlasunshrugged 5y ago
  Mixed- I'm a big fan of the idea of harm reduction products but some (Juul being the worst example) fall into the business pressure of also becoming an addictive product to increase shareholder value. But in general, if used correctly the principle is sound imo (although it's been a few years since I've been out of the industry so I'm not up to speed on the latest data). Big fan of nicotine gum and there have been some approaches using a combo of community, check-ins, and financial rewards for people to quit that had some compelling results.
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  Whatever the health benefits compared to traditional cigarettes (which I don't know about and there may not even be) they undid decades of youth smoking reductions basically overnight. Brutal policy failure our children's generation will pay for and great demonstration of the results of valuing "disruption" only for profit's sake.
- tintedfireglass 5y ago
  I think that all stimulants and depressants that alter the mind are not good for us and even if they are great in short term (like caffeine) it's not a good idea to create dependancy on a particular chemical.
- scarmig 5y ago
  One Juul pod roughly delivers the same amount of nicotine as a pack of cigarettes, which makes it very easy and tempting to ingest that much nicotine. That said, nicotine is one of the least dangerous chemicals in cigarettes. A Juul pod a day is probably as bad as a half dozen cups of coffee in a day: not great for you, but also not really deadly.
h2odragon 5y ago
Makes me want to work up a "home tobacco mentholation howto". I smoke, but I despise flavored tobaccos. Not as much as I dislike the notion of the government banning their sale. Mixing in some dried mint leaf may be viable for those who prefer flavors; but when you're making your own smoking salad you've already gone beyond the pale for most people. Like meat; people prefer the convenient package over involvement with the details of what's inside it or how it got there.
- primis 5y ago
  Just a few drops of menthol oil on the filter will do the trick, most of the flavor is in the filter.
fellowniusmonk 5y ago
Just trying this line of thought on for size, let me know what you think: We could probably just charge tobacco companies the full future medical expenses (including pain, suffering and years of life lost) of any minors that smoke menthol cigarettes when there was advertising or product availability in that child's area. We have good historical/statistical data for these costs so as a starting point we could charge the tobacco companies up front based off the known stats and put it into a medical fund instead of having to survey individual children. Why? Because children aren't responsible for being idiots with poor executive function. and Parents who lock their children up to fully protect their kids from the outside world are bad parents (right?) If parents are solely responsible (the children can't be) than we might as well start sending parents to jail when their kids look at pornography and skip to the point where all parents are in jail or fined into poverty. Children push boundaries, any industry that manufacturers, targets and profits off of exploiting the nature and developmental stages of children with purely recreational addictive carcinogens should pay the full externalized cost. Part of respecting children is knowing that they can be extremely smart and their ideas have just as much validity as any adults but their ability to calculate and process the implications of risk is under developed. That way everyone is treated like an adult who is an adult (companies are run by large groups of adults who know what eggs they are cracking to make their omelet, certainly they do in this case), no nannie state intervention, and importantly, no unpayed externalized costs for our larger society to pay while a small portion of other adults profit.
- Drblessing 5y ago
  I think that we need to start accepting individual responsibility more. Also, holding companies liable for illegal usage of their products is a constraint on growth. Why not charge the store that illegal sold the children the Menthol cigarettes? Why not ask the children what ads they say with cigarettes in them and charge the marketing agency?
  - giraffe_lady 5y ago
    > I think that we need to start accepting individual responsibility more. Why? People always put this out there as a universal moral virtue but I just don't see it that way. The ideology of individual responsibility for all negative consequences has led us to horrific places. It's useful and necessary sometimes but not always, and I don't think here. > Also, holding companies liable for illegal usage of their products is a constraint on growth. Who fucking cares? Again, growth in itself is not a virtue we need to cultivate for its own sake. Growth of what, and for what ends? Growth is a tool we can use, so what are we using it for in this case. And do we even want to be?
micromacrofoot 5y ago
If they're so keen on banning specific flavors of cigarette, why not ban them entirely?
bannedbybros 5y ago
robonerd 5y ago
Evidently the only reason menthol cigarettes aren't banned already like the rest of flavored cigarettes is because they predominantly kill black people. What an absolutely disgusting state of affairs. Seriously, what the fuck?
- ng12 5y ago
  Flavored cigarettes were deemed to be too attractive to children (probably right, considering the Juul craze). Adults of any color are allowed to partake in self-destructive habits.
  - robonerd 5y ago
    > Flavored cigarettes were deemed to be too attractive to children Which is precisely why menthol cigarettes should be banned. The idea that black kids don't count for this consideration is homicidal insanity. "National survey data showed that significantly more adolescents and young adults than older persons smoked menthol cigarettes. In 2006, 43.8% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 40.6, 47.0) of current smokers aged 12 to 17 years reported that they used menthol cigarettes, as did 35.6% (95% CI = 34.0%, 37.2%) of current smokers aged 18 to 24 years. By contrast, 30.6% (95% CI = 28.6%, 32.6%) of smokers older than 35 years reported menthol use." 'Tobacco Industry Control of Menthol in Cigarettes and Targeting of Adolescents and Young Adults' https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2007.125542 https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2007.1255...
    - adamrezich 5y ago
      > The idea that black kids don't count for this consideration is homicidal insanity. framing the issue as menthol cigarettes killing black kids is a really infantilizing view of black people. black people are just as capable as anyone else of free will and the ability to make their own life choices. it just so happens that menthol cigarettes are popular among black Americans. would you frame chewing tobacco as "killing rural white kids" in the same way? you could alternatively frame this situation as: black Americans, more than other groups, disproportionately enjoy smoking menthols, and this action is banning something they enjoy doing, and therefore is racist for the completely opposite reason! lower-income people disproportionately consume fast food. is this "killing" them, and should therefore be banned, because fast food is disproportionately "killing" lower-income people? the same principle applies here. also, I hope you're not in favor of "safe shoot-up sites" for heroin, etc., at the same time as you hold these views about menthols and black people, because that would be pretty contradictory! the possibility of a world where weed is legal and menthols can only be acquired illegally, handmade on the black market, is an interesting one, that's for sure!
Drblessing 5y ago
What an egregious overreach by a non-elected government agency.
rad_gruchalski 5y ago
West ice was the best cigarette. These were removed from the shops when EU bsnned menthol cigs.
BeFlatXIII 5y ago
I hope any jury trials this causes decide to nullify the regulation.

35 points by bluedino 5y ago

I read a bit about this yesterday and it's really annoying to me. On one hand I totally understand the idea--tobacco is super harmful and kills hundreds of thousands of Americans every year and menthol seems to be more of a 'gateway' into tobacco use than traditional tobacco but at the same time this feels highly paternalistic and condescending to black communities (who are one of the key populations referenced in admin/fda talks about the need for this bill). I'm much more of a fan of using pigouvian taxes to try to drive desired outcomes but let people who really want to engage in a behavior do so, as long as they pay the true cost of that behavior.

SOLAR_FIELDS 5y ago
I’m actually a proponent of this only because it brings menthol in line with the rest of the FDA’s enforcement on the matter. Back in my smoking days, I used to like Djarum Blacks (a brand of clove cigarette). Around the start of the 2010’s the FDA banned all sales of flavored cigarettes, ostensibly to “protect the children”, obviously. Menthol cigarettes, arguably the smoothest and easiest to smoke cigarette that serves to make smoking more approachable, were very notably exempted from that ban. As an anecdote, my wife when she smoked found every non-menthol flavored cigarette to be disgusting and only smoked menthol. Djarum Blacks and many other smaller cigarette brands and types fell under the ban. Djarum Blacks were forced to wrap their cigarettes in different paper and rebrand them as an inferior “cigar” product and other brands disappeared entirely. People, myself included, shifted their smoking habit to arguably worse-for-you menthol cigarettes, sold primarily by Big Tobacco. The exemption was one of the biggest Big Tobacco handouts of the 21st century, the other one being the enforcement of chemical certification of vape products.
- gavinray 5y ago
  My mom used to smoke cloves when I was a little kid on occasion, and I remember that cigarettes smelled disgusting but damn those cloves smelled delicious. I never wound up trying one as an adult (I've tried regular/mentholated cigarettes, both disgusting but I'm glad I know for sure). Cloves are banned now?
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 5y ago
    They are still sold, but they are called “Filtered Clove Cigars” now and are not as good - among several things: they are harder to draw now, they lost a lot of the characteristic “firecracker” pop (a popping noise that happens as the cloves burn that’s very similar to wood settling in a campfire) and are harsher to smoke. I suspect if one wanted to find them in their original, better form the easiest thing to do would be to import them from Indonesia somehow - the kretek, which is the Indonesian name for the clove cigarette, originated from there and it’s an extremely popular cigarette in Indonesia.
- jrs235 5y ago
  And if I recall correctly, one argument for not banning menthol cigarettes was because it would affect the black community disproportionately! What if we didn't look at anything but health outcomes (and liberties)? (I probably prefer the vice tax... as long as the public is expected to pay for the health issues of individuals who make crappy choices...)
  - robonerd 5y ago
    > And if I recall correctly, one argument for not banning menthol cigarettes was because it would affect the black community disproportionately! A narrative cynically bought and paid for by tobacco industry propagandists: > The disproportionate toll of menthol cigarettes among African Americans compared with the general population is a social injustice. The black community has long been subjected to the predatory marketing of mentholated tobacco products, particularly in lower income areas, where there are not only more advertisements, but more promotions and cheaper prices for menthol cigarettes when compared with more affluent neighbourhoods.7 Tobacco companies also heavily rely on their cooptation of community leaders to defuse tobacco control efforts.8 Black-led organisations with financial ties to the tobacco industry have played a critical role in disseminating misinformation throughout the black community. Such misinformation, for example, includes the idea that local policies prohibiting the sale of mentholated tobacco products are racist and will increase the criminalisation of individuals who possess or smoke them, exploiting legitimate concerns about racist policing to defend the tobacco industry’s targeted predation on the black community. PDF: https://www.savingblacklives.org/_files/ugd/29e3b2_51eb6e3ea3284d40b1e9322915cf8b82.pdf https://www.savingblacklives.org/_files/ugd/29e3b2_51eb6e3ea...
- mistrial9 5y ago
  .. before "EarthShine" or after?
lazyier 5y ago
It should be more than annoying. It is a denial of human autonomy.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  "denial of autonomy" is probably the least useful way to criticize a law, there are hundreds of necessary laws that plainly deny autonomy
- smt88 5y ago
  It doesn't stop people from making their own menthol cigarettes. It just stops companies from profiting from killing people with them.
tialaramex 5y ago
> pigouvian taxes to try to drive desired outcomes It's an attractive idea, but we're talking about the US so there are two big problems: * AFAIK the FDA does not actually have tax raising powers, and it's not going to get granted any tax raising powers, so now instead of an FDA intervention you're relying on Congress to do something. Good luck with that. * Most tax powers which do exist lie with States, and States are always cash poor, so a "pigouvian" tax quickly becomes a must-have revenue stream. Then one of the two bad things happens. The State encourages the sin you wanted people to stop, because that drives tax revenue, or worse the State gradually adds stuff which isn't a sin to the same tax. You wake up and either there's a TV advert paid for by the State explaining how "A pack a day helps Maggie keep her lungs strong and local schools benefit!" or else you discover that the milk on your breakfast cereal now includes "Menthol tax" because "Menthol" now includes "Dairy products, root vegetables, writing paper and non-religious ornaments" after the State found a hole in its budget.
- chad___homenim 5y ago
  > big problems > so now instead of an FDA intervention you're relying on Congress to do something Yes, that's the entire point of our system of government. We are not governed by executive dictate, rather by laws created by elected representatives beholden to their constituents. This is not a "big problem," it is a cornerstone for preventing your rights from being trampled upon. The straw man you write about your local state doing this is something you invented in your head.
CharlesW 5y ago
> I'm much more of a fan of using pigouvian taxes to try to drive desired outcomes but let people who really want to engage in a behavior do so, as long as they pay the true cost of that behavior. How do pigouvian taxes address the problem, which is that Big Tobacco is using flavored products to target kids and people of color?
- atlasunshrugged 5y ago
  Because higher prices on more elastic products, especially for price constrained consumers like youth and lower income people, are correlated with decreased usage of such products. https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/assets/factsheets/0146.pdf https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/assets/factsheets/0146.pdf

Bostonian 5y ago

https://reason.com/2022/04/28/the-fdas-menthol-cigarette-ban-is-a-racial-justice-issue-but-not-in-the-way-its-supporters-mean/ https://reason.com/2022/04/28/the-fdas-menthol-cigarette-ban... In addition to condescending assumptions, the FDA is displaying remarkable shortsightedness regarding the practical impact of its policy on the community it supposedly is trying to help. "Policies that amount to prohibition for adults will have serious racial justice implications," the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Drug Policy Alliance, the Sentencing Project, and 24 other organizations warned in an April 2021 letter to Becerra and Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock. "Such a ban will trigger criminal penalties, which will disproportionately impact people of color, as well as prioritize criminalization over public health and harm reduction. A ban will also lead to unconstitutional policing and other negative interactions with local law enforcement." The ACLU letter noted that "a menthol cigarette ban would disproportionately impact communities of color, result in criminalization of the market, and exacerbate mass incarceration." The ban "also risks creating large underground, illegal markets." That "would be a massive law enforcement problem for states, counties, and cities, since all states treat unlicensed sale of tobacco products as a crime—usually as a felony punishable by imprisonment."

j16sdiz 5y ago
This is disturbing. Almost all ban disproportionally impact people with lower social economical status. Every fine impacts less weathy people more. Does this meant we should stop all ban?
- atlasunshrugged 5y ago
  I believe in Norway or Finland they have tiered fines based on income level to counter that, specifically for driving fines I believe, which seems like another option (although a hard one to do for a consumer product not sold in government stores... maybe tobacco shops will go the way of alcohol shops becoming government run in some states)
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    The F is the point of busting my ass to work some stupid office job and be financially stable if a minor transgressions is just as ruinous as when I was a janitor? The way you fix the fact that some people are crippled and others aren't isn't to shoot everyone else in the leg. The ONLY redeeming feature of such policy is that the people who dutifully report each and every cent of income are hit harder than the people who take the "I'll report what they know about" approach and most of the people who support these policies tend to be in the former group and that's pretty paltry as far as silver linings go.

x3ro 5y ago

In the EU, menthol cigarettes have been banned for about two years now. The main argument appears to be that it makes it easier / less unpleasant to smoke [1, in german], thus it makes it easier for people to start smoking. Anecdotally, this aligns with my own experience. At the age of 13 or so, the first cigarettes I smoked were menthol, because the other ones were simply too gross. Luckily I never started smoking proper, but I can definitely see the danger. Edit: Note that I'm not trying to relativize the situation in the US by saying "the EU did it too". I'm just providing an additional data point. Edit 2: I'm curious though, as to why people would not simply start smoking "normal" cigarettes if menthol ones were banned. Could someone elaborate on this? Are menthol cigarettes just _really_ popular in communities of color in the US? Here in Germany, I rarely saw anyone above the age of 25 ever smoking them at all. [1]: https://www.bfr.bund.de/de/presseinformation/2020/19/aus_fuer_menthol_in_zigaretten_und_rauchtabak-246580.html https://www.bfr.bund.de/de/presseinformation/2020/19/aus_fue...

bombcar 5y ago
People would still smoke normal cigarettes, in the groups I was in during college nobody smoked menthols but they certainly had opinions about cigarettes, including the manufacturing location of even the same brand. The world needs to come to a decision of the side-effects of cigarettes are something we're willing to accept. We've already made that decision on alcohol, though arguably its effects are more closely tied to the moment of consumption.
robonerd 5y ago
> At the age of 13 or so, the first cigarettes I smoked were menthol, because the other ones were simply too gross. This is by design. The tobacco industry researched the matter themselves years ago, found the level of menthol that teenagers prefer the most, and adjusted their product formulations accordingly. > I'm curious though, as to why people would not simply start smoking "normal" cigarettes if menthol ones were banned. Kids who start 'experimentally' smoking are more likely to stick with it (subsequently developing an addiction) if they smoke menthol cigarettes, specifically because the anesthetic and analgesic effects of menthol make the experience less unpleasant for them. The tobacco industry figured this out and specifically reformulated their cigarettes to optimize for this. They are murderers.

bennyp101 5y ago

The UK banned it in May 2020 so nearly 2 years ago. It actually helped me stop smoking, as I was using menthol filters in my rollies, as I had become not super keen on “plain” taste. Interestingly, when I searched for when the ban was introduced there was a BBC article from 2018 saying “ Tobacco shares hit by US menthol ban fear” I guess it’s coming round again

atlasunshrugged 5y ago
Yes, but didn't the UK do it in concert with an effort to promote harm reduction products (e.g. vapes, nicotine gum)? I spent a lot of time in London before covid and felt like there were more stores selling vape products than I would see in the US and much higher taxes on traditional tobacco products than in most U.S. states
- bennyp101 5y ago
  Yea, tax on tobacco is high. They did also ban packs of 10 cigs, and smaller pouches of baccy. But yes, lots of vape shops came and went in my local town, some tried to be bars or cafes, but it seems just small stores now.
  - atlasunshrugged 5y ago
    Interesting! I've never heard of packs of 10 cigs, was that just a marketing ploy to make them more affordable?
fithisux 5y ago
What helped me to stop smoking is the realization that governments are the real drug dealers.

lbj 5y ago

You can't help but feel loved when you see the great lengths governments go to, to act like our parents. /s

bluescrn 5y ago

With cigarettes closer to exterminated, how long until we face a new era of alcohol prohibition?

atlasunshrugged 5y ago
Never, although we may end up only being able to drink sparkling seltzers, white claws, and whatever is in vogue with DC staffers /s
Retric 5y ago
Drug policy is not moving in one direction, pot is becoming dramatically more accessible over time.
- Drblessing 5y ago
  Legalize pot, cocaine, mushrooms, ketamine, and psychedelics.
zarzavat 5y ago
Many drugs can have adverse social effects that are often made worse by prohibition, but smoking is the only one that I can think of that directly poisons other people in the general vicinity of the user. It’s rather special in that regard.

0xbadcafebee 5y ago

I'm curious how the black community will respond. Menthols are an ingrained part of Black culture in America. This BBC article talks about the controversy, particularly from the Black community's perspective: "Why the proposed US ban on menthol cigarettes is controversial" (2021) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56934957 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56934957 "How Menthol Cigarettes Became Black Americans’ Preferred Smoke" (2021) https://slate.com/technology/2021/05/menthol-cigarette-ban-fda-public-health-black-americans.html https://slate.com/technology/2021/05/menthol-cigarette-ban-f... "How the tobacco industry targeted Black Americans with menthol smokes" (2022) https://www.npr.org/2022/04/29/1095291808/tobacco-industry-targeted-black-americans-with-menthols https://www.npr.org/2022/04/29/1095291808/tobacco-industry-t... ^ That article talks about how flavored cigarettes were banned in 2008, except for Menthols. This other article from the time explicitly notes how legislators were fine with capitulating on Menthols as long as they got other cigarettes off the market. Which to me smacks of basically not caring what happens to Black smokers. "Cigarette Bill Treats Menthol With Leniency" (2008) https://archive.ph/W3o4z https://archive.ph/W3o4z "The Menthol Movement: How Tobacco Became a Racial Justice Issue" (2022) https://www.communitysolutions.com/menthol-movement-tobacco-became-racial-justice-issue/ https://www.communitysolutions.com/menthol-movement-tobacco-... And: "How Big Tobacco used George Floyd and Eric Garner to stoke fear among Black smokers" https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-04-25/inside-big-tobaccos-strategy-to-stoke-fear-among-black-smokers-facing-menthol-bans https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-04-25/inside... Since last summer, the Los Angeles Times and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism have tracked strategic efforts across the country by Reynolds American to keep menthol cigarettes in the hands of smokers. The company has hired a team of Black lobbyists and consultants, including former congressman Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), and sponsored the organization led by civil rights activist and MSNBC political show host the Rev. Al Sharpton. Those figures have in turn stoked fears among Black communities about what the bans could mean. Reynolds American for years has enlisted prominent Black personalities in its lobbying efforts. This investigation has uncovered new details about how individuals and organizations working on Reynolds’ behalf have failed to properly declare their links to the company. Lobbyists for the company in Denver successfully killed a bill that would have banned menthol cigarettes. And in Los Angeles, protesters were paid to attend a rally organized by a group with close ties to the company. So the "controversy" seems to be astroturfing by the cigarette industry. Never underestimate the tactics of an evil organization, I guess?

jcranberry 5y ago

I remember my first pack of cigarettes were camel menthols when I was around 16? I never got into the habit but it makes sense to me.

turzmo 5y ago

Sorry -- only tangentially related to the article, but what are HN's thoughts on other nicotine delivery systems (vape pens, etc.)?

atlasunshrugged 5y ago
Mixed- I'm a big fan of the idea of harm reduction products but some (Juul being the worst example) fall into the business pressure of also becoming an addictive product to increase shareholder value. But in general, if used correctly the principle is sound imo (although it's been a few years since I've been out of the industry so I'm not up to speed on the latest data). Big fan of nicotine gum and there have been some approaches using a combo of community, check-ins, and financial rewards for people to quit that had some compelling results.
giraffe_lady 5y ago
Whatever the health benefits compared to traditional cigarettes (which I don't know about and there may not even be) they undid decades of youth smoking reductions basically overnight. Brutal policy failure our children's generation will pay for and great demonstration of the results of valuing "disruption" only for profit's sake.
tintedfireglass 5y ago
I think that all stimulants and depressants that alter the mind are not good for us and even if they are great in short term (like caffeine) it's not a good idea to create dependancy on a particular chemical.
scarmig 5y ago
One Juul pod roughly delivers the same amount of nicotine as a pack of cigarettes, which makes it very easy and tempting to ingest that much nicotine. That said, nicotine is one of the least dangerous chemicals in cigarettes. A Juul pod a day is probably as bad as a half dozen cups of coffee in a day: not great for you, but also not really deadly.

h2odragon 5y ago

Makes me want to work up a "home tobacco mentholation howto". I smoke, but I despise flavored tobaccos. Not as much as I dislike the notion of the government banning their sale. Mixing in some dried mint leaf may be viable for those who prefer flavors; but when you're making your own smoking salad you've already gone beyond the pale for most people. Like meat; people prefer the convenient package over involvement with the details of what's inside it or how it got there.

primis 5y ago
Just a few drops of menthol oil on the filter will do the trick, most of the flavor is in the filter.

fellowniusmonk 5y ago

Just trying this line of thought on for size, let me know what you think: We could probably just charge tobacco companies the full future medical expenses (including pain, suffering and years of life lost) of any minors that smoke menthol cigarettes when there was advertising or product availability in that child's area. We have good historical/statistical data for these costs so as a starting point we could charge the tobacco companies up front based off the known stats and put it into a medical fund instead of having to survey individual children. Why? Because children aren't responsible for being idiots with poor executive function. and Parents who lock their children up to fully protect their kids from the outside world are bad parents (right?) If parents are solely responsible (the children can't be) than we might as well start sending parents to jail when their kids look at pornography and skip to the point where all parents are in jail or fined into poverty. Children push boundaries, any industry that manufacturers, targets and profits off of exploiting the nature and developmental stages of children with purely recreational addictive carcinogens should pay the full externalized cost. Part of respecting children is knowing that they can be extremely smart and their ideas have just as much validity as any adults but their ability to calculate and process the implications of risk is under developed. That way everyone is treated like an adult who is an adult (companies are run by large groups of adults who know what eggs they are cracking to make their omelet, certainly they do in this case), no nannie state intervention, and importantly, no unpayed externalized costs for our larger society to pay while a small portion of other adults profit.

Drblessing 5y ago
I think that we need to start accepting individual responsibility more. Also, holding companies liable for illegal usage of their products is a constraint on growth. Why not charge the store that illegal sold the children the Menthol cigarettes? Why not ask the children what ads they say with cigarettes in them and charge the marketing agency?
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  > I think that we need to start accepting individual responsibility more. Why? People always put this out there as a universal moral virtue but I just don't see it that way. The ideology of individual responsibility for all negative consequences has led us to horrific places. It's useful and necessary sometimes but not always, and I don't think here. > Also, holding companies liable for illegal usage of their products is a constraint on growth. Who fucking cares? Again, growth in itself is not a virtue we need to cultivate for its own sake. Growth of what, and for what ends? Growth is a tool we can use, so what are we using it for in this case. And do we even want to be?

micromacrofoot 5y ago

If they're so keen on banning specific flavors of cigarette, why not ban them entirely?

bannedbybros 5y ago

robonerd 5y ago

Evidently the only reason menthol cigarettes aren't banned already like the rest of flavored cigarettes is because they predominantly kill black people. What an absolutely disgusting state of affairs. Seriously, what the fuck?

ng12 5y ago
Flavored cigarettes were deemed to be too attractive to children (probably right, considering the Juul craze). Adults of any color are allowed to partake in self-destructive habits.
- robonerd 5y ago
  > Flavored cigarettes were deemed to be too attractive to children Which is precisely why menthol cigarettes should be banned. The idea that black kids don't count for this consideration is homicidal insanity. "National survey data showed that significantly more adolescents and young adults than older persons smoked menthol cigarettes. In 2006, 43.8% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 40.6, 47.0) of current smokers aged 12 to 17 years reported that they used menthol cigarettes, as did 35.6% (95% CI = 34.0%, 37.2%) of current smokers aged 18 to 24 years. By contrast, 30.6% (95% CI = 28.6%, 32.6%) of smokers older than 35 years reported menthol use." 'Tobacco Industry Control of Menthol in Cigarettes and Targeting of Adolescents and Young Adults' https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2007.125542 https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2007.1255...
  - adamrezich 5y ago
    > The idea that black kids don't count for this consideration is homicidal insanity. framing the issue as menthol cigarettes killing black kids is a really infantilizing view of black people. black people are just as capable as anyone else of free will and the ability to make their own life choices. it just so happens that menthol cigarettes are popular among black Americans. would you frame chewing tobacco as "killing rural white kids" in the same way? you could alternatively frame this situation as: black Americans, more than other groups, disproportionately enjoy smoking menthols, and this action is banning something they enjoy doing, and therefore is racist for the completely opposite reason! lower-income people disproportionately consume fast food. is this "killing" them, and should therefore be banned, because fast food is disproportionately "killing" lower-income people? the same principle applies here. also, I hope you're not in favor of "safe shoot-up sites" for heroin, etc., at the same time as you hold these views about menthols and black people, because that would be pretty contradictory! the possibility of a world where weed is legal and menthols can only be acquired illegally, handmade on the black market, is an interesting one, that's for sure!

Drblessing 5y ago

What an egregious overreach by a non-elected government agency.

rad_gruchalski 5y ago

West ice was the best cigarette. These were removed from the shops when EU bsnned menthol cigs.

BeFlatXIII 5y ago

I hope any jury trials this causes decide to nullify the regulation.