Menthol? What Menthol?

Earlier this year the FDA Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee , entrusted with investigating menthol in cigarettes, stopped just short of a recommendation that menthol be banned. The report noted that, “removal of menthol cigarettes from the marketplace would benefit public health in the United States.” This diplomatic missive, or cowardly depending on your perspective, recognized that menthol may not actually be harmful. But in cigarettes certainly causes harm.

Last week Congress threw another variable into the works when Montana Republican Denny Rehberg’s amendment to an appropriations bill was approved by the House Appropriations Committee. The amendment, in short, would preclude “consumer behavior” as a variable in determining whether a product was safe. Hence the fact that the Advisory Committee had noted that even though menthol played an integral part in the ease of youth initiation to nicotine addiction, and difficulties in cessation, it could not play a role in the decision on whether or not to ban menthol in cigarettes.

A release from Tobacco Free Kids, and others, notes that of the 29 to 20 committee vote, those voting in favor received 20 times the campaign contributions from tobacco companies than those opposing the amendment.

The moral here is a brief lesson in just how bad the passage of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act was.

It is no secret that the major public health groups, led by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, snuggled up with Phillip Morris to pass the FSPTC. Having the majority market share in the U.S. PM knew they had a good chance that the other tobacco companies would immediately file suit to block any problematic marketing reform. (They did, blocking black and white advertising and restrictions on claiming FDA approval of cigarettes, almost immediately.) While the Act did remove fruit and candy flavored cigarettes,( small cigars and spit tobacco were unaffected). Menthol was the deal breaker for PM because, some menthol is in all tobacco, and they knew they had legislators already paid for in Congress.

The first guiding principle for the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control is that the interests of the tobacco industry and the public health are incompatible. In the U.S. some of us are learning hard lessons about the veracity of this guideline. Unfortunately, the rest of us will pay for it.