FDA Given Opportunity to ban Menthol

Handsel Art

20 March 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

contact J.R. Few

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or 870-427-1365

Panel Releases Report on Menthol

On March 19 the FDA’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Panel (TPSAP) released a draft of its report on menthol in cigarettes. Advocates had feared that the narrow scientific restrictions of the investigation would find that the menthol in cigarettes was relatively benign. But the panel, while failing to actually make the recommendation that menthol in cigarettes be eliminated, found for the larger concept of menthol’s harm in cigarettes. The panel found that menthol’s cooling effect made addicting youth easier and quitting more difficult. Virtually all tobacco products contain some menthol.

The report states, “The availability of menthol cigarettes in the marketplace could adversely affect public health through two consequences: (1) increasing the risk for the diseases caused by smoking cigarettes; and (2) increasing the number of people who smoke.” It goes on to conclude, “Removal of menthol cigarettes from the marketplace would benefit public health in the United States.” Unfortunately, the TPSAP did not make any specific suggestions on how to limit the harm to the public health.

The 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, giving limited authority over tobacco to the FDA, banned fruit and candy flavoring. But a political compromise charged the TPSAP to report on the public health impact of menthol in cigarettes. Many advocates opposed the compromise because 80% of African American smokers smoke menthol.

A statement released by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids applauded the report saying, “We urge the FDA to implement the committee's recommendation in a way that maximizes the public health benefits.” Tobacco Free Kids led several of the major public health groups in negotiations with tobacco giant Philip Morris to see successful passage of the Act.

American Legacy Foundation Distinguished Professor of Tobacco Control at UCSF, Dr. Stanton Glantz, noted that the most significant finding was that menthol, “has a complex pharmacological interaction with nicotine that affects the addictive potential of cigarettes.” He added that, “The question at this point is whether the FDA and the Obama Administration will have the backbone to ban menthol in all tobacco products (or, at least as a first step, all smoked tobacco products, which is more than just cigarettes) and whether the major health organizations will unambiguously press for such a ban.”

If the stock market is any prediction tobacco companies still have little to worry about. Lorrilard, maker of Newport, the leading menthol cigarette, saw its stock value rise 3.4% as drafts of the report were released.

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Dr. Philip Gardiner Addresses CTFA Conference

Handsel Art

13 September 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

contact J.R. Few

handselart@gmail.com

or 870-427-1365

Authority Discusses Menthol in Tobacco

“Young Blacks have found their thing, it’s menthol in general and KOOL in particular.” Philip Morris Tobacco Company, 1974

Recently Arkansans were fortunate to have Dr. Philip Gardiner speak at the Coalition for a Tobacco Free Arkansas’ annual Striking Out Tobacco in Arkansas conference. Dr. Gardiner is a public health activist concerned with issues ranging from racial disparities in health care, AIDS and cancer, to the effect of menthol in tobacco and the African American community. The National African American Tobacco Prevention Network estimates that 82% of African Americans smoke menthols. The tobacco industry has a history of advertising, discounting, and promoting menthol cigarettes most heavily in African American communities.

In 2009 Congress passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act giving limited authority to the FDA over tobacco. The Act prohibited tobacco companies from using fruit and candy flavors in tobacco in an effort to curb youth smoking but failed to eliminate the most common flavoring, menthol.

Gardiner’s presentation noted the CDC estimates smoking rates in the African American community at 22.4%. A more detailed study shows smoking rates closer to 38%. African Americans start smoking later in life, generally smoke fewer cigarettes, smoke cigarettes with a higher nicotine content compared to other ethnic groups, and are more likely to smoke menthol cigarettes. They also suffer disproportionately from tobacco related disease and death.

The FDA Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Panel is currently studying the effect of menthol in tobacco. Menthol is used in many different products and is generally considered harmless. Dr. Gardiner’s emphasis was to broaden the concept of harm in cigarettes because it makes smoking more palatable, harder to quit, and “makes the poison go down easier.” It is the “ultimate candy flavoring”, he said.

Menthol Also Global Issue

The status of adding menthol to tobacco is at question for more reasons than the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act’s giving limited authority to regulate tobacco to the FDA. Globally, Article 9 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control proposes regulating the contents of tobacco products to eliminate any additive that is not tobacco.

The Louisville Courier-Journal quotes the President of the Lexington-based Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative Association, Roger Quarles as saying, “The ingredients themselves (in burley tobacco) are not harmful whatsoever.” Mr. Quarles may well have missed several decades of the science surrounding tobacco and health. The problem here is that the harshness of burley tobacco smoke practically requires some flavoring to make it palatable. At issue is the 200 million pounds of burley is produced in the U.S. each year, 3/4 of which is exported. Kentucky’s 2009 burley crop was worth $274 million.

We’ll see what influences both the FDA and the Senate more, lives saved globally or dollars for a few farmers in Kentucky.

That Minty Fresh Taste in the Bile of Political Manipulation

In 2009 the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act was passed with huge support from status quo public health groups and opposition from tobacco companies, with the exception of Philip Morris, and a minority of tobacco prevention advocates. These minority advocates, before any particulars, knew that historically any collaboration with the tobacco cartel had been in the end only beneficial to the industry. That conclusion is being affirmed daily.

Prohibition of tobacco marketing assertions that claimed FDA approval of tobacco products was quickly struck down by the courts, as were the black and white advertising limitations. Passage of the bill was momentarily held up because while eliminating fruit and candy flavors it did not prohibit menthol flavoring for tobacco. The argument was that after passage there would be the opportunity to eliminate menthol as one of many substances in tobacco that had been proven to be a harm. Well guess what? The guidelines that dictate how and what the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Board can recommend may well preclude the elimination of menthol because menthol, by itself is not harmful. This at least is one of the argument that the industry will take in opposing any change in regards to menthol.

There is little doubt that menthol in tobacco is a key in the initiation of nicotine addiction. It acts as an anesthetic cooling tobacco smoke and making tobacco more palatable. Eliminating menthol in tobacco could prevent many youth from ever starting to use tobacco and make quitting more possible for other untold millions. The enormity of the potential lives saved by restricting this additive is almost incomprehensible.

One of the basic premises this bill’s advocates took was that if we knew what was in tobacco products their harm could be evaluated and the industry forced to remove them. But now it seems this harm could well be evaluated independently of tobacco. Dr. Joel Nitzkin describes the situation in a Globalink post: “In other words -- the problem is not the "science" related to menthol -- but a bureaucratic standard operating procedure adopted by FDA on the basis of an overly constrictive interpretation of the legal authority granted to them under the new FDA tobacco law.”

75% of African American smokers smoke a “menthol” brand but virtually all tobacco has to some degree menthol as an additive. The African American Caucus held up passage of the Family Smoking and Tobacco Prevention Control Act’s limited authority to regulate tobacco over the issue of restricting menthol flavoring just as the bill had eliminated fruit and candy flavors. However, objections from Philip Morris prompted supporters to compromise with the assurance that menthol could be eliminated after the bill’s passage. This may not be the case at all.

The panel has until 2012 to make its recommendations concerning menthol. This issue, if nothing else, displays quite well the irony and inanity of asking the FDA to regulate an inherently unsafe product without the authority to regulate it out of existence.