![]() “Taking these products out of the legal marketplace will push them into unregulated, criminal markets that don’t follow any regulations and ignore minimum age laws,” the spokesman, David Sutton, said in a statement. menthol cigarettes, warned that banning menthol would push the products into illegal, underground markets with no oversight and unfortunate health consequences. A spokesman for Altria, which owns Philip Morris USA, which sells about 9 percent of the U.S. The tobacco companies are likely to contest the rule in court, which could result in a long legal battle and more delay. It is expected that it will take a least a year to go into effect. said it would also convene listening sessions to engage with the public on the proposal in June. 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. Some menthol products remain on the market as the agency mulls how to rule on some of the top-selling devices. had regulatory authority over them.) The agency has so far granted marketing approval to makers of some tobacco-flavored vapes. (Sales of these products began before the F.D.A. is currently reviewing all vaping products being sold in the United States to determine whether to allow them to stay on the market. The ban does not cover menthol e-cigarettes. ![]() 1 preventable cause of death and disease,” Mr. “This is potentially an extraordinary, landmark intervention to reduce the No. If the United States’ 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. Taking menthol cigarettes off the market is expected to further reduce smoking levels. Still, cigarettes are estimated to cause 480,000 deaths each year, and among those starting the habit, menthol is popular, with about half of teenage smokers reporting that they use them. Smoking rates overall have been falling for 20 years, although a small uptick was reported in 2020, attributed to the pandemic. “After fighting against deadly menthol products for decades, today is a victory for Black America.” “These products have killed our children, our parents, our brothers, sisters and livelihoods,” Mr. The president of the N.A.A.C.P., Derrick Johnson, called the ban a “win for justice.” Public health experts say menthol cigarettes have been heavily marketed to Black people, to devastating effect: African American men have the highest rates of lung cancer in America, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “As a result, we do not believe the published science supports regulating menthol cigarettes differently from non-menthol cigarettes.” “The scientific evidence shows no difference in the health risks associated with menthol cigarettes compared to non-menthol cigarettes, nor does it support that menthol cigarettes adversely affect initiation, dependence or cessation,” Mr. Kingsley Wheaton, the 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. The proposed ban was announced after a frenzy of lobbying by tobacco and retail interests. cigarette market, and about 18.5 million Americans smoke them.īanning them “would help prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers and help adult smokers quit,” Xavier Becerra, the health and human services secretary, said, adding that it would significantly reduce tobacco-related deaths among Black people. Menthol cigarettes make up about one third of the $80 billion U.S. Menthol, a chemical derived from the mint plant that can also be made in a lab, is added to cigarettes to make smoking less harsh, providing a cooling sensation in the throat and making the experience more appealing. If effective in reducing smoking, the ban could significantly diminish the burden of chronic disease and limit the number of lives cut short by one of the most hazardous legal products available. The ban would most likely have the deepest impact on Black smokers, nearly 85 percent of whom use menthol cigarettes, compared with 29 percent of white smokers, according to a government survey. 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.
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