FDA moves to ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars

The following is excerpted from the CounterTobacco.org website:

On April 29, 2021 the FDA announced their intention to issue proposed product standards this year eliminating menthol in cigarettes and all flavors in cigars. This action is huge, historic, and overdue. It will save lives, especially Black lives. It is thanks to tireless advocates who have been working towards this for decades, and a result of a recent lawsuit led by the African-American Tobacco Control Leadership Council (AATCLC) and Action on Smoking and Health to compel the FDA to respond to a citizen petition submitted by the Public Health Law Center, the Center for Black Health and Equity, and AATCLC originally in 2013 after menthol was excluded from the ban on all other flavored in cigarettes in the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act and after the FDA’s own studies concluded based overwhelming scientific evidence that removing menthol would benefit public health.

This is perhaps the biggest action the FDA could take to reduce health disparities. For nearly 100 years, commercial mentholated tobacco products have escalated the harm caused by tobacco products. The tobacco industry has extensively targeted its marketing for menthol to African American communities, causing disproportionate harm to Black Americans. Menthol cigarettes alone have likely been responsible for more than 10 million extra smokers and 378,000 premature deaths.

It is important to note that the product standards would be enforced at the manufacturing and retail level – they will not involve a ban on possession or use.

Learn more about menthol here and read the FDA’s full press release here.

The full online post can be found at this location:
https://countertobacco.org/fda-moves-to-ban-menthol-cigarettes-and-flavored-cigars/