Too Popular To Sell? FDA Committee Calls For Ban on Menthol-Flavored Cigarettes

FDA advisory group called the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee has asked the Administration to bar the sale of menthol cigarettes as a danger to human health. The reason? They are too popular. I do not smoke and I do not like smoking. However, I find it increasingly bizarre to ban products because people like them too much. If the Administration wants to seek a prohibition of tobacco, there are good faith reasons to do so. However, most Americans continue to believe that adults have a right to choose to smoke. If tobacco is legal, I do not see why citizens should be barred from buying the type of tobacco that they prefer.

The Committee insists that menthol-flavored cigarettes are too popular with children and African Americans. Much of the recommendation focuses on adults who are African-American, Hispanic as well as other ethnic and racial minorities. However, the Committee does not find any greater health risk of the product itself. Rather, they are so popular that they are likely to increase smoking: “The availability of menthol cigarettes leads to an increase in the number of cigarette smokers and the burden of premature mortality.”

The message seems to be: you can sell tobacco products unless they are too popular with consumers.

Unless there is some added health risk associated with menthol-flavoring, I have serious reservations about telling my neighbors that they cannot buy these cigarettes . . . as long as they do not smoke them in my house.

Source: Chart found on Reddit

Jonathan Turley

49 thoughts on “Too Popular To Sell? FDA Committee Calls For Ban on Menthol-Flavored Cigarettes”

  1. “they kept my friends from bumming my cigarettes”

    Buddha,

    To give you a perspective, I always hated menthol cigarettes, but it never stopped me from bumming one from anyone around if I was out of my Marlboro Reds.

  2. Blouise,

    Some of the things I may have seen……I once saw a……oh never mind this is almost a family site compared to what I was going to say….what I saw in Mexico and the contents of a coke bottle and disappearing…..

  3. AY,

    Tried to mix the two … not for me.

    Now chocolate and coke and ….

  4. Blouise
    1, March 21, 2011 at 1:38 pm
    Swarthmore mom
    1, March 21, 2011 at 12:55 pm
    Blouise, I like Coke Zero too much. Back on the poisonous stuff

    ===================================================

    I hear you except my addiction is even worse … …….

    You want to know the worst of it? When I’m feeling really needy I have a “chocolate coke”! Yep, I actually mix Hershey Chocolate syrup with coke and lots of ice. It’s almost, almost as good as sex (shut up, AY). I had my first….

    **********************************

    Who is to say that all could not be combined….Maybe it could turn into some great exercise and stimulation….mentally to boot…

    All is not lost…..Possibilities…. Chocolate…Coke….and ….

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