Tag: menthol

Menthol Ban Is “at Odds With People’s Freedom” Say European Smokers

Photo: Taco Tuinstra
In testimonials collected by smoker advocacy group Forest EU, smokers from across Europe described the imminent ban on menthol cigarettes, which comes into force in every EU member state from May 20 May, as “useless” and “at odds with people’s freedom.”
Patricia from Denmark asked: “Why can’t I decide for myself whether or not to smoke cigarettes with menthol?”
Angelika from the Netherlands shared: “I don’t smoke menthols. But nowadays you are not allowed to determine anything yourself.”
Victoria from Poland said: “Of course, it is good that the EU is concerned about our health, but banning menthol cigarettes is at odds with people’s freedom. Also, it is likely that this measure will create an illegal trade, bringing menthol cigarettes from neighboring countries such as Ukraine.”
Other testimonials can be read on Forest EU’s website.
“This isn’t another restriction. Banning an entire category of cigarette is prohibition,” said Guillaume Périgois, director of Forest EU.
“Banning menthol cigarettes will do little to deter children from smoking and will almost certainly fuel an uncontrolled black market in menthol tobacco products.”
The enactment of the ban on May 20 follows the completion of a four-year phasing-out period under the EU-level Tobacco Products Directive which became applicable in 2016.
Menthol cigarettes are consumed by approximately 7 million EU adults. In 2017, 8 percent of EU monthly smokers said they used menthol flavored tobacco. Menthol tobacco users represented 24 percent of monthly smokers in Finland, 20 percent in Denmark, 16 percent in the Netherlands and Lithuania, 15 percent in Estonia and Latvia, and 14 percent in Belgium, according to Eurobarometer.
Menthol tobacco generates an estimate of €10 billion ($10.84 billion) in sales across the continent, according to Euromonitor.
May 15, 2020
FOREST Worries About Timing of Menthol Ban

Simon Clark, speaking at the 2019 TABEXPO conference in Amsterdam
Photo: Taco Tuinstra
Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ group Forest, says the upcoming ban on menthol cigarettes in the EU and the U.K. will hit consumers at the worst possible time.
“The Covid-19 pandemic is having a huge impact on people’s daily lives,” he said. “This is not the moment to prohibit a product many smokers enjoy and take comfort from. Given the current crisis, and the disruption and anxiety it is causing, the ban is going to hit consumers at the worst possible time.”
From May 20, 2020, it will be an offense for manufacturers to produce menthol cigarettes and for retailers to sell menthol cigarettes in the U.K. and throughout the European Union.
The ban also applies to hand-rolling tobacco with mentholated filters or papers if they are supplied together in the same product.
Clark worries that the menthol ban will catch many smokers unprepared. “We believe that a significant number of smokers are unaware of the forthcoming ban,” he said. “They will be shocked when they find that their favorite brands are no longer available via legitimate retailers. The government is understandably preoccupied with more serious issues, but imposing prohibition on so many consumers without a proper awareness campaign is inexcusable.”
May 5, 2020
A Pointless Exercise

The EU’s upcoming ban on menthol cigarettes serves no purpose.
By George Gay
According to Hannah Devlin, science correspondent of The Guardian, astronomers are to sweep the entire sky for signs of extraterrestrial life for the first time, using 28 giant radio telescopes in an unprecedented hunt for alien civilizations (Feb. 15, 2020, page 3). Toward the end of her piece, Devlin quotes the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking as having warned against attempting alien contact, suggesting the outcome for humans would not necessarily be good. But she quotes, too, Andrew Siemion, the director of the Berkeley Seti center, as saying that he thought such contact should be attempted, and adding that, “I think without a doubt, we would.”
I think both comments are right up to a point. It is unarguable that the outcome of such contact would not necessarily be good for humans, but history has taught us that, whatever the risk, scientists somewhere would not hold back from making the attempt. Scientific knowledge is no bar to stupidity.
I cannot think in terms of light years, so I find it impossible to imagine making contact with life forms in other galaxies. But I do find it instructive, often in what turns out to be a cautionary way, to consider what extraterrestrials might make of us earthlings if, because of their super-advanced technology, they could view us in real time through a telescope. What might they say to one another, I wonder? “Hey, come and look at these jerks! Their environment is going down the toilet, and what are they doing? They’re worrying about menthol cigarettes! These are supposed to be intelligent beings! Let’s not go there.”
I think that the EU is a great experiment in international cooperation, and I am sad—and if I were younger I would be angry—that the U.K. is leaving it, but ridiculous legislation such as its ban on the production and sale of menthol cigarettes sometimes makes it difficult for people such as me to defend the institution against its detractors. In the great scheme of things, what is the point of banning menthol cigarettes?

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Background
Well, before I attempt to answer that question, a couple of notes about what the ban entails and how it came about. The production and sale of menthol cigarettes and cigarettes with capsule-containing filters are to be banned within the EU from May 20, 2020, as is the sale of roll-your-own (RYO) tobaccos sold with mentholated filter tips and/or papers. However, RYO tobacco and “accessories,” such as mentholated filter tips and papers, may all be sold separately.
This regulation has been a long time coming. Its origins go back to a December 2012 proposal by the European Commission to update the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) and, a year later, to the EU Parliament’s support for stiffening the rules against tobacco and related products, and, de facto, against committed tobacco users. Early in 2014, the TPD2 was approved by the Parliament and adopted by the EU Council; and it entered into force in May of that year. Aspects of TPD2 were challenged, but it was declared valid by the European Court of Justice in May 2016. Most of the provisions of TPD2, including a ban on the sale of cigarettes with characterizing flavors except menthol, came into effect in May 2017, following a year’s sell-through period. There is no sell-through period in respect of menthol cigarettes.
Now, let’s return to the question above: what is the point of the ban? Well, according to some commentators, it is aimed at reducing smoking; but this must be hokum. Trying to reduce smoking by banning the sale of menthol cigarettes is like trying to reduce alcohol consumption by banning the sale of wine with characterizing flavors other than grape—such as peach wine.
Meanwhile, the EU put forward as part of its justification for the ban what the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had concluded in 2013: that menthol cigarettes pose a public health risk above that seen with nonmenthol cigarettes. It also quoted the FDA as saying that menthol use is likely associated with increased smoking initiation by youth and young adults; that menthol in cigarettes is likely associated with greater addiction; and that menthol smokers are less likely to successfully quit smoking than their nonmenthol-smoking counterparts.
Of course, the EU did not point out that the FDA was so concerned about menthol cigarettes in 2013 that it did nothing about them.
Reading the above, I was amused by the way the FDA, this self-styled bastion of rigorous science, apparently throws the word “likely” about as if it were confetti at a wedding. And I found myself not convinced by what seemed to me to be some muddled thinking. If the FDA thinks it’s necessary to say that it’s possible “to successfully [my emphasis] quit smoking,” rather than “to quit smoking,” I take it that it believes also that it is possible to unsuccessfully quit smoking. But whereas you might make an unsuccessful attempt to quit smoking, you cannot unsuccessfully quit smoking—not in this galaxy.
I have trouble also with the concept of “greater addiction.” The word “addiction” has become so malleable in the minds of a lot of people that it is now like mental chewing gum. No more than I can imagine a million light years, can I imagine how degrees of addiction would be measured in a scientifically rigorous manner.

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Other risks
The EU aligns with the FDA also on smoking initiation among young people. One of the EU’s original justifications for the ban cited scientific studies that have shown that flavors such as menthol facilitate inhalation and may play a role in smoking initiation. I would have thought scientific studies that purport to show that something may be the case should be binned, but, having said that, I am ready to believe that it is possible that menthol does aid smoking uptake by the young. However, there are laws to prevent the sale of all types of cigarettes to these people, and it seems unbalanced to spoil the enjoyment only of adult smokers of menthol cigarettes because the authorities in the EU’s member states are failing to enforce laws that apply to all cigarettes, especially given the fragility of the scientific studies referred to above.
After all, the EU seems not to take issue with another product that has been linked with cancer and that young people consume—the younger ones at the behest of adults. In fact, according to the headline above another story that appeared in the same newspaper as Devlin’s report, the EU has been under attack for spending more than €200 million ($225.78 million) on the promotion of meat. As writer Daniel Boffey points out in his piece, “Scientists have provided evidence of a link between cancer and diets involving pork, beef and lamb products.”
And how those extraterrestrials must be laughing. Boffey points out too that the livestock sector is responsible for about 14.5 percent of human-derived greenhouse gas emissions. How can it be in the interests of young people for the EU to spend millions of euro promoting something that is linked with cancer and that is helping to flush the environment down the toilet? It is young people, not older adults, who are going to have to settle, at best, for a life squatting on the toilet’s event horizon.
But it isn’t really about the young, is it? How can we have the temerity to maintain, against all the evidence, that we want to protect young people? And I’m not talking only of governments here, I’m calling out ordinary people. One example. In my country, the U.K., voters have recently given a huge parliamentary majority to a party that, during the past 10 years, has overseen a big increase in child poverty and that will almost certainly cause more such poverty during the next five years—a party led by a person who many commentators say is unable or unwilling to account for how many children he has. Elsewhere, the abuse of children in the U.K. is accepted to the point that those in authority often look the other way, and it is even “celebrated” in one of our poetic forms, the limerick. I don’t know what became of the young chaplain from Kings, but some of the leaders of his church sit, by right, in our second chamber, the House of Lords; I presume, to provide us with spiritual guidance. This is way beyond irony.
I would not argue that the EU should concentrate on nothing but the environment. But it should certainly take off the table any nonessentials and put all available hands to the environment pump. The climate crisis is not a future event. It is already upon us.
By comparison, the menthol-cigarette ban is pure faff. I presume that it has been devised by people who haven’t moved against gooseberry and elderflower wine because most of them consume alcohol. They want to put a stop to a pleasure that they cannot understand. You can see this in the rules about roll-your-own tobacco. Allowing the sale of menthol papers and tips as separate items but not in conjunction with tobacco seems to be aimed at inconveniencing smokers. The EU’s bureaucrats should be put to work on critical projects. Announcing the European Green Deal is all well and good but, from what I read, making it work is going to be a huge challenge. The carbon scammers will already be jostling for position.

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Accommodation
Inevitably, products have been appearing on the market aimed at helping menthol-cigarette smokers through the difficult time being ushered in by the May 20 ban. One, a menthol-infusion card that smokers can slip into a pack of regular cigarettes or fine-cut, is particularly clever, mimicking as it does the RYO accessory exemption, and thereby presumably staying well within the spirit and the letter of the law. Ironically, menthol smokers might end up preferring this system because they can tailor their preferred menthol level by adjusting the length of time they leave the cards in the pack. And of course, menthol smokers can help themselves after May 20 by putting regular cigarettes, together with some menthol crystals bought from their local pharmacies, into a sealed jar and leaving them there for a time based on their preferred menthol strength.
Despite the fact that I see the menthol cigarette ban as being unnecessary and unfair, discriminating against and collectively punishing a minority group of smokers, you have to accept that what is done is done and try to make the most of it. I suppose you have to hope that those menthol-cigarette smokers in the EU who do not want to take advantage of the new DIY methods react by quitting or switching to menthol vaping.
But it’s those extraterrestrials who will have the last laugh. They will hardly be able to contain themselves as more EU energy is expended on TPD3 while the environment tips over the event horizon to the strains of “Goodnight Irene.”
George Gay is Tobacco Reporter’s European editor, but his territory spans the globe. Based in London, George has covered the tobacco industry since 1982, initially for a U.K.-based publication and since 2004 for Tobacco Reporter. George’s understanding of industry issues, combined with his keen sense of observation and dry wit, have earned him a loyal following among Tobacco Reporter’s readers.

March 31, 2020
Wisconsin university to study menthol
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention received a $368,000 grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institutes and the Food and Drug Administration to “study the use of menthol cigarettes” and contribute to the FDA’s research to determine whether or how to regulate the flavoring, reports the Wisconsin State Journal.
The grant begins this month and runs through June 2014. The principal research investigators will be Michael Fiore and Timothy Baker of the UW Center for Tobacco Research and James Stein of UW Preventive Cardiology Program.
According to the UW-CTRI website, the research will use data from the Wisconsin Smokers’ Health Study 2, a longitudinal study involving 2,500 participants and assessing dependence, participant characteristics and quitting attempts and successes, to determine associations of menthol cigarette smoking with dependence, cessation attempts and cessation success.
August 9, 2013
Critical condition
The future of U.S. tobacco manufacturer Lorillard hangs in the balance while the government decides whether to ban menthol.

By Brandy Brinson

This month is critical to the future of Lorillard Inc., the third-largest manufacturer of cigarettes in the United States. On March 23, the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee (TPSAC) is scheduled to announce its recommendation on the use of menthol in cigarettes to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). If the committee advises an all-out ban on menthol and the FDA follows the recommendation, Lorillard will face a huge challenge. Its top brand Newport, a premium menthol brand, accounts for more than 90 percent of total company sales.
Proponents of a ban say menthol is attractive to African-American smokers as well as minors. Opponents say a ban would result in the loss of thousands of jobs as well as create a massive black market for menthol products. The TPSAC has been reviewing the issue for more than a year.

The debate
The legislation granting the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco banned all flavorings except for menthol in September 2009, in the name of protecting minors from smoking. Menthol was tabled for further study, which is being conducted by the TPSAC. The legislation said the FDA should review the issue and decide by 2012 whether it should be banned.
Menthol accounts for 29 percent of all cigarette sales in the U.S. It was first added to cigarettes in the 1920s and became a marketing priority for the industry in the 1960s.
Anti-tobacco activists want menthol banned because they say young smokers begin smoking with menthol because of the minty taste. Part of the debate surrounding menthol is race-related, as approximately 80 percent of African-American smokers choose menthol cigarettes.

Sound science
Throughout the process, the TPSAC has stated that it will apply fact-based science to its decision-making process. The committee is examining several factors—such as whether menthol affects nicotine absorption, addictiveness, smoking initiation, perception of risk, desire to quit and conversion from experimentation to regular smoking.
Manufacturers, having submitted hundreds to thousands of pages of research, have shown that menthol does not make a cigarette more harmful or addictive.
The industry has also demonstrated grave concern for the development of a substantial black market if menthol is banned. Approximately 70 percent of menthol could turn into contraband if banned, which would equate to 20 percent of total U.S. market volume.
Lorillard presented findings of a study examining the effects of a ban to the TPSAC. The study found that an ensuing black market would substantially mitigate any decline in cigarette smoking and inspire a “significant increase in organized crime activity,” potentially increasing youth access to cigarettes. The study was conducted by Compass Lexecon, a Chicago-based economic consulting firm.
Lorillard urged the panel to not lose sight of the congressional and FDA mandate to “follow the science” in developing its report, and to keep in mind that “Congress’ purpose of granting FDA with authority to regulate tobacco was to create order and supervision of the industry—not create chaos the likes of which have not been seen since prohibition.”
Unfortunately for Lorillard, the committee appears to be downplaying concerns about a black market and lost revenue.
At this point, TPSAC appears to be focusing mainly on the issue of youth smoking.

Latest developments
Analysts for Deutsche Bank Andrew Kieley and Marc Greenberg predict that the probability of the TPSAC recommending a ban (or severe restrictions) in late March is slightly over 50/50.
While the evidence actually points in favor of not banning menthol for epidemiological reasons, they fear that youth smoking concerns and the negative tone of the committee will lead to a recommended ban.
“TPSAC emphasizes an evidence-based report, and significant portions of data do not support restricting menthol. However the reasons we remain concerned are youth over-indexing to menthol, and its masking effect. TPSAC is highly-attuned to the youth issue, and it would be the most likely grounds for ‘weight of the evidence’ to support a ban or other penalties,” say Kieley and Greenberg.
Just after the February TPSAC meetings, Kieley and Greenberg said, “It is frustrating that TPSAC is still not discussing recommendations, to give us some visibility. However we view discussions of draft report chapters and Committee’s tone as negative overall.”
Actions and remarks by the committee especially during the February meetings indicate that they will recommend a ban. Kieley and Greenberg say, “The negative stance of some TPSAC members is obvious; they continue to hypothesize about potential ramifications of a ban (including a large section of the Summary chapter), and their statistical model will explicitly consider a world without menthol (‘For the purposes of the present report, TPSAC is concerned with counterfactual scenarios in which menthol cigarettes never existed.’). These are not encouraging signs.”
The tone of the committee is not much of a surprise, given that members of the TPSAC have been criticized for having a conflict of interest. Two of the members have clear ties to pharmaceutical companies that manufacture smoking cessation products, with one member (Jack Henningfield) being one of eight patent holders of a nicotine chewing gum.
During the last meeting in February, Henningfield made his position even more clear when he told Philip Morris at the end of a Q&A on a long presentation, “I don’t know why you bothered.”

The report
While the final recommendation is still unclear, the TPSAC did announce in February its expected format for the report. It will consist of eight chapters, though the titles have not been finalized.
The chapters are:
* Chapter 1: Introduction
* Chapter 2: Approach to Evidence Gathering and Review
* Chapter 3: Physiological Effects of Menthol
* Chapter 4: Patterns of Menthol Cigarette Smoking in the U.S.
* Chapter 5: Marketing, Initiation, Addiction, and Cessation
* Chapter 6: Effects of Menthol on Disease Risks of Smoking, Toxicology, Biomarkers, and Epidemiology
* Chapter 7: Public Health Impact of Menthol Cigarettes
* Chapter 8: Conclusions and Recommendation

In addition, the FDA has asked industry representatives who serve on the committee to develop an industry perspective document on the public health impact of menthol cigarettes that will accompany the report.

While much of the report had not yet been written in February, the presentations offered some insight. Kieley and Greenberg see the most risk from Chapters 3 and 4, especially as they are fed into the TPSAC’s statistical model of menthol’s “public health” impact. “If TPSAC recommends a ban or restrictions, these chapters could likely comprise the ‘weight of evidence,’” they say.
In Chapter 3, the Physiological Effects of Menthol, the writers claim that menthol’s cooling sensory perception makes it easier to smoke, and that menthol potentially interacts with nicotine to create higher cigarette “impact” and addictiveness. They do say it is unclear if menthol impacts nicotine metabolism. However, they say menthol “clearly” reduces harshness of cigarette smoke, there is “strong plausibility” that menthol increase addictiveness of cigarettes, and that it “likely” boosts the impact of low-tar cigarettes.
Kieley and Greenberg say, “This matters for the report because in terms of a ‘public health’ risk, it would portray menthol as a starter product, a ‘conversion’ product to turn experimenters into regular smokers, or keeping people smoking rather than quitting. The risk is magnified because these factors could be inputs into TPSAC’s statistical model of mortality rates and societal disease burden.”
Chapter 4, Patterns of Menthol Smoking, is also seen as a significant negative by Kieley and Greenberg, given the FDA’s mandate to consider public health impact on underage and minority groups. The chapter shows heavy reliance on unfavorable survey data, showing higher rates of menthol preference among minority groups and women, as well as increasing share of menthol among underage smokers.
Chapter 6, Risk Factors, is certainly the most favorable to the industry. “In this section covering biomarkers and disease rates, TPSAC seems to agree with industry arguments that there is a lack of evidence that menthol is any different from regular cigarettes in these aspects,” say Kieley and Greenberg.
As of the February meeting, the draft summary was not fleshed out and did not contain firm conclusions. It is expected to summarize the statistical model and explicitly address potential repercussions of a ban.

The FDA. The recommendations in the TPSAC’s report are nonbinding—meaning the FDA does not have to accept them. How the FDA will respond is another area of debate.
Unfortunately, say Kieley and Greenberg, it is difficult to tell. “We think it will largely come down to 1) how much they weight TSPAC’s recommendations, 2) what strength of evidence they require, and 3) how the contraband argument resonates.” They think contraband could be critical. However, with the World Health Organization (WHO) now recommending restrictions on menthol, there will be pressure on the FDA to follow suit.
An outright ban on menthol is not the only potential outcome. Other possibilities include additional regulation—such as rules on content or marketing—as well as changing product formulation, by adjusting menthol and nicotine content.
There will also be the possibility for Lorillard to challenge a ban in court. While March 23 is a critical date, the fallout will likely carry on for months if not years.

March 1, 2011