Simone Smith
In 2013, there was a citizen petition filed by the Public Health Law Center and partners, that called on the FDA to prohibit menthol in cigarettes.
The 2013 petition was filed in response to an independent FDA study that concluded that there is “overwhelming scientific evidence” showing the catastrophic health effects of menthol.
The FDA’s 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act gave the FDA authority to regulate tobacco products, and since then the agency has been “collecting additional information rather than acting.”
Now it looks like the Food and Drug Administration appears likely to move to ban menthol in cigarettes — a step, experts say, that has been years in the making. This is especially important for African Americans as they have been negatively affected by the use of menthol cigarettes.
Research indicates that a vast majority of African American smokers — 85 percent — use menthol cigarettes, and African American men and women are much less likely than Caucasian Americans to be diagnosed with lung cancer at an earlier, potentially more treatable stage. African men are reported to have the highest lung cancer death rate in the country.
The FDA’s decision would not ban menthol immediately, but rather kick off the rule-making process to do so, which could take years.
The FDA was poised to ban menthol flavoring in 2018 under the leadership of then-Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, but failed to follow through. Gottlieb did not respond to a request for comment.
According to the petition, “The time for action is now.”
