FDA again is attempting to ban menthol cigarettes

WASHINGTON — U.S. health regulators pledged again Thursday to try to ban menthol cigarettes, this time under pressure from African American groups to remove the mint flavor popular among Black smokers.

The Food and Drug Administration has attempted several times to get rid of menthol but faced pushback from Big Tobacco, members of Congress and competing political interests in the Obama and Trump administrations. Any menthol ban will take years to implement and will likely face legal challenges from tobacco companies.

Thursday’s announcement is the result of a lawsuit filed by antismoking and medical groups last summer to force the FDA to finally make a decision on menthol, alleging that regulators had “unreasonably delayed” responding to a 2013 petition seeking to ban the flavor.

The deadline for the agency’s response was Thursday. The FDA said it aims to propose regulations banning the flavor in the coming year.

The action would also ban menthol and fruity flavors from lowcost small cigars, which are increasingly popular with young people, especially Black teens.

“We will save hundreds of thousands of lives and prevent future generations from becoming addicted smokers,” said Dr. Janet Woodcock, the FDA’s acting commissioner.

She cited research that estimates that banning menthol would prevent 630,000 tobaccorelated deaths over 40 years, more than a third of them among African Americans.

Menthol is the only cigarette flavor that was not banned under a 2009 law that gave the FDA authority over tobacco products, an exemption negotiated by industry lobbyists. But the act did instruct the agency to continue to weigh banning menthol.

About a third of all cigarettes sold in the U.S. are menthol, and its elimination would be a huge blow to tobacco companies, including Altria and Reynolds American, maker of the leading menthol brands, Newport and Kool. With the slow decline of smoking, tobacco companies have been diversifying into alternative products, including electronic cigarettes and tobacco pouches. But those ventures still account for a tiny slice of industry sales.

A spokeswoman for Reynolds American said the company would submit evidence countering FDA’s proposal.

“Published science does not support regulating menthol cigarettes differently from nonmenthol,” she said in a statement.

An Altria spokesman said in a statement that “criminalizing menthol” would have “serious unintended consequences.”

The FDA stressed Thursday that its ban would apply only to manufacturers, distributors and retailers, not individuals.