A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel, treading cautiously on the hotly contested issue of whether menthol cigarettes should be outlawed, has declared that the public would benefit from the removal of the product but stopped short of calling for a ban.
The scientific advisory panel’s stance, however, appears to keep alive the possibility that the FDA will take menthol cigarettes off the market.
The advisory group, which spent a year drafting its position, pointed out the concerns that public health experts long have raised about menthol cigarettes — that the minty flavoring can entice young people to start smoking and that the product is heavily marketed to African-Americans.
As The Washington Post reports, the panel found that the use of menthol cigarettes is growing among teenagers and is “very high” among African-American and Hispanic smokers. In addition, African-American smokers suffer higher rates of lung cancer, stroke and other tobacco-related diseases than white smokers.
But in its draft report delivered Friday, as The Wall Street Journal noted, the advisory panel said it “has no specific suggestions” on how the FDA should respond. The agency is under no deadline to act.
The Journal said some industry analysts interpreted the panel’s position as putting less pressure on the FDA to impose a ban. Yet an advocacy group, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, lauded the panel, saying its conclusions “leave no doubt that menthol cigarettes have had a profound adverse impact on public health in the United States, resulting in more smoking and more death and disease from tobacco use.”
The FDA began to regulate cigarettes in 2009. It subsequently banned all flavored varieties except for menthol, with the justification that flavored cigarettes encourage young people to smoke.
Menthol cigarettes currently account for roughly 30 percent of total cigarette sales. The most prominent menthol manufacturer is Lorillard, the maker of Newport cigarettes, which relies on menthols for an estimated 90 percent of its sales.
In an effort to stave off a potential ban of menthols, Lorillard and R.J. Reynolds, which together own the three largest menthol brands, sued the FDA in February, alleging that three members of the advisory panel have conflicts of interest because of their previous work on legal cases against the tobacco industry.
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