Menthol under threat

The US Food and Drug Administration plans to propose a ban on menthol cigarettes this week as part of its aggressive campaign against flavored electronic cigarettes and some tobacco products, according to a story by Sheila Kaplan for the New York Times, quoting agency officials.
However, Kaplan said the proposal would have to go through the FDA’s ‘regulatory maze’, and that it could be several years before such a restriction took effect, especially if the major tobacco companies contested the agency’s authority to do so.
None of the major tobacco companies were ready to comment on the possibility of barring menthol cigarettes.
Such a move has been long-awaited by some public health advocates, who have been especially concerned about the high percentage of African-Americans who become addicted to menthol cigarettes.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the agency’s commissioner, would not comment publicly on the proposal on Friday [when Kaplan’s piece was published]. But he was quoted as having said in a recent interview that the FDA was revisiting the issue, one that had been weighed by previous administrations. “It was a mistake for the agency to back away on menthol,” he said.
Canada has already imposed a ban on menthol cigarettes, and the EU’s ban is set to go into effect in 2020. Earlier this year, San Francisco passed a prohibition against the sales of menthol cigarettes and flavored e-cigarettes.
Kaplan said that the menthol proposal was just one of several initiatives the FDA planned to announce sometime this week, which would include a ban on sales of most flavored e-cigarettes, except menthol and mint, at retail stores and gas stations across the country.
The products, which include such flavors as chicken-and-waffles and mango, would be mainly relegated to sales online, at sites where the agency hopes to impose strict age verification to ensure that minors cannot buy them.