The Biden adminstration paused a proposed ban on menthol cigarettes last week after it received an ”immense amount of feedback” on the move.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the long-awaited move toward a menthol ban in April 2022. The agency has worked on the issue since at least 2011. A 2009 law banned all flavors in cigarettes, except for tobacco and menthol.
The FDA estimated in 2019 that more than 18.5 million people aged 12 and up smoked menthols in the U.S. It recorded high rates of use by youth, young adults, African-Americans, and other racial and ethnic groups.
The FDA said banning menthol cigarettes in the U.S. would lower smoking by 15 percent nationwide in the next 40 years, and over that time, an estimated 324,000 to 654,000 smoking deaths overall and 92,000 to 238,000 African-American deaths could be avoided.
The FDA opened the proposal up for public comment in April, a necessary step in federal rule-making. The comment period was expanded by 60 days in June at the urging of lobby groups advocating for convenience stores, truck stops, and marketers of gasoline and diesel.
The ban was first delayed in December 2023, and plans to finalize the ban in March never materialized. However, administration officials said they were still committed to implementing a ban. White House officials said last week comments from the public led to the pause.
“This rule has garnered historic attention and the public comment period has yielded an immense amount of feedback, including from various elements of the civil rights and criminal justice movement,” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement on Friday. “It’s clear that there are still more conversations to have, and that will take significantly more time.”
Banning menthols would only push sales underground, said officials with NACS, the national lobby firm for convenience stores and gas stations.
“Real-world data and results have shown that prohibition of menthol cigarettes does not reduce smoking or advance public health. Instead, like the experience with prohibition of other entrenched products, it simply leads to more illicit sales,” said Doug Kantor, general counsel at NACS. “We hope the weight of evidence showing the ineffectiveness of what was originally proposed leads the Department to change course entirely.”
The NAACP pushed for the national ban. That group is now calling on states to issue their own bans on menthols. Tobacco-related chronic illness is one of the lading causes of death for African Americans, it said.
”The targeted marketing of menthol cigarettes to Black individuals has contributed to about 77 percent of Black smokers using menthol cigarettes, compared to 23 percent of white smokers,” reads a statement from the NAACP. “This statistic is no accident; it is the result of decades of marketing strategies by tobacco companies. Menthol use has resulted in increased rates of lung cancer, heart disease, and stroke among Black Americans.”
Some said, though, that the ban would unfairly target African-American consumers. Writing in The Washington Post, columnist Eugene Robinson said he understood tobacco companies targeted Black consumers for years.
“But I can’t rush to cheer a new policy that puts a terribly unhealthy — but perfectly legal — practice enjoyed so disproportionately by African Americans on the wrong side of the law,” Robinson wrote.
Enforcement of the new law would have only addressed manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, importers and retailers that deal in cigarettes. The new rule would not have included a prohibition on individual consumer possession or use.
