FDA Takes On Menthol Flavored Tobacco Products
For the cigarette industry, a fight over the marketing of cigarettes known as “menthol” appears to be on the horizon.
The new administration’s federal advisory board for tobacco regulation plans to meet to discuss the menthol issue. At the forefront of the board’s concerns is a contentious, and socio-economically issue that Congress put off to this year when it empowered the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) to regulate tobacco for the first time.
It might surprise some readers that menthol flavorings in cigarettes account for almost a third of the nation’s $70 billion cigarette market.
Critics of the tobacco industry and many members of Congress have advocated a total ban of menthol in tobacco products. Said critics feel that the flavoring, which cools and some say covers the taste of cigarette tobacco, is being marketed to young smokers while also being marketed to African-Americans who, as a group, have the highest rates of smoking-related disease.
Congress has passed the issue on to the F.D.A., which will have a stated two-year deadline to propose new regulations.
