The FDA has completed its investigation into menthol cigarettes and found that they are no more hazardous than normal cigarettes. Michael Siegel summarizes:
In its draft of Chapter 6 of the report, TPSAC reviews the evidence on whether menthol cigarettes are more hazardous than non-menthol cigarettes, including smoking typology, biomarker, toxicology, and epidemiologic studies. The Committee concludes that:
1. “The evidence is insufficient to conclude that it is more likely than not that menthol cigarette smokers inhale more smoke than non‐menthol cigarette smokers.”
2. “The evidence is insufficient to conclude that it is more likely than not that menthol cigarette smokers are exposed to higher levels of nicotine and other tobacco smoke toxins, at least in regular daily smokers of more than 5 or 10 cigarettes per day. There are insufficient data to know if among smokers of relatively few cigarettes per day menthol cigarettes result in greater smoke intake and more exposure to tobacco smoke toxins.”
3. “The evidence is insufficient to conclude that smokers of menthol cigarettes face a different risk of tobacco‐caused diseases than smokers of non‐menthol cigarettes.”
The panel did find that menthol can enhance the smoking experience, making it less likely for smokers to quit. But this is obvious: If people didn’t like flavored cigarettes, no one would make them. Siegel again:
It is not clear what the criterion should be for the FDA to decide whether to ban menthol. If the FDA applies the criterion that was used to ban the other cigarette flavorings (i.e., whether the flavorings might enhance the taste of the product), then it would be forced to ban menthol cigarettes. In fact, the FDA would also be forced to ban all cigarette flavorings and additives, since all of them are added to enhance the ultimate bottom line: the quality and appeal of the smoking experience. If the product’s appeal were not enhanced by an additive, then that additive would not be added. This is a tautological issue, not a legitimate scientific question.
If the FDA applies the criterion suggested by Lorillard - that to be banned, menthol cigarettes must be more hazardous than non-menthol cigarettes - then the FDA would have no grounds to ban menthol cigarettes.
Siegel is right that this is not a question of science it all. It’s a question of what the FDA, Congress, and the president can get away with politically. From my Examiner column last year:
Because many consumers prefer mentholated cigarettes, one can claim that menthols are harder to quit or encourage more people to take up smoking. However this is not the same as showing that they are more “addictive.” By that standard, anything companies add to their products to increase their appeal to consumers would make them addictive. Menthol “masks” the harsh taste of tobacco in the same that milk and sugar mask the bitter taste of Starbucks coffee or barrel aging masks the bite of white dog whiskey. If menthol cigarettes are more dangerous than regular cigarettes, it’s simply because people like smoking them more. [...]
Throughout the FDA’s hearings the most important question gets almost no attention: If a consenting adult wants to smoke a menthol (or clove, or banana…) cigarette, why shouldn’t he or she be allowed to? The agency claims to be concerned for children, but in seeking to ban flavored cigarettes it treats all adults like careless youths. The preferences of consumers are deemed irrelevant; smokers assumed to be dupes or addicts incapable of making their own decisions.
This hearing is, in essence, a debate about whether the FDA should ban a product simply because it is unhealthy and people enjoy it. Once that precedent is set it is a much shorter step to prohibiting cigarette sales entirely.
If anything, this new report just confirms that there was never any scientific justification for the initial ban on all other cigarette flavorings.
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OK, one quick post from Tales with a couple links. I’m at the Washington Examiner today with a post about why the FDA’s menthol hearings are asking the wrong questions. Then at the Portland Examiner, Hoke Harden has a great (and way too flattering!) write-up of the Brewing Up Cocktails event. If you’re curious about the drinks we served, go check it out.
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No, the headline is not an April Fool’s joke. This week the FDA began its inquiry into whether it ought to ban the sale of menthol cigarettes:
A scientific advisory panel that will advise the Food and Drug Administration on regulating tobacco opened a two-day meeting Tuesday and began reviewing hundreds of published studies on menthol cigarettes. The panel, largely made up of scientists, physicians and public health experts, has a year to make a recommendation to the FDA on menthol cigarettes, which are used by about 26 percent of smokers and make up almost one-third of the $70 billion U.S. cigarette market.
Throughout this process there will be allegations from anti-tobacco groups that menthol cigarettes are more addictive, more dangerous, and more likely to hook teenagers than unflavored cigarettes. These scare tactics neglect to mention that menthol itself is harmless. It’s not habit-forming like nicotine. It’s not dangerous and is used widely in medicinal, dental, and food products. Tobacco companies don’t put it in cigarettes as part of a dark conspiracy to addict people. They use it because it tastes good, is soothing, and consumers want it.
Because of these effects it’s possible that some of the charges against menthol cigarettes are true, statistically speaking. The FDA’s going to spend a lot of time and money sorting this out, but there’s no mystery as to why this is: When a product is pleasant, people consume more of it. They’ll smoke more of them or smoke each cigarette more intensively. They’ll have less reason to quit. Some teenagers will prefer them to unflavored cigarettes, just as about one third of legal adult consumers do. This doesn’t mean that menthols are especially toxic, it just means that people like them.
If this is accepted as a legitimate reason to ban menthol cigarettes there’s no limit to what the government could do next. It could ban other forms of flavored tobacco in cigars, pipes, chew, and hookahs — in fact, New York City has already passed a low doing almost exactly that. It could force cigarette producers to make their products so bland and heavily filtered that no one wants to buy them. It could kill premium pipe and cigar companies entirely, an industry whose purpose is to make tobacco that tastes good and is pleasant to smoke.
And that’s just tobacco. If menthol and other flavors can be banned for “masking” the harsh taste of cigarettes, why not ban flavors that “mask” the harshness of cheap vodka? Or the barrel aging that turns hot white dog into mellow whiskey? Or hops in beer, condiments in fast food, milk and sugar in a venti Frappuccino? As individual health increasingly becomes the public’s business, there’s no end to the unhealthy things we can reduce the consumption of by simply making them unpalatable.
If you read the press coverage of this debate in The Post for example, you’ll see quotes from anti-tobacco activists explaining why menthol needs to be banned. You’ll even see quotes charging that not doing so would be racially discriminatory on the grounds that menthols are relatively more popular among blacks than whites. What you won’t see are quotes from any of the millions of consumers who currently smoke menthols and may soon have that choice taken away from them. The opinions of smokers do not matter; they are assumed to be dupes or addicts incapable of making their own decisions. By portraying them as victims of the tobacco companies anti-smoking activists dodge the consumer rights aspect of this issue. They avoid answering the hardest question asked in opposition to their plan: If a consenting adult wants to purchase a flavored cigarette, why shouldn’t he be allowed to do so?
This is a dangerous road. It’s one thing to forbid sales to minors, to tax tobacco, to require warning labels, and to restrict the sorts of places where one can light up. It’s quite another to take a product off the market simply because many people prefer it. That is pure paternalism; take individual agency out of the picture and it’s a much smaller step to banning tobacco entirely.
This issue is going to drag on for a long time. I’m sure I’ll be writing more about it here, but be sure to also follow the excellent coverage of Brooke Oberwetter starting with her most recent blog post.
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Hot on the heels of the FDA’s ban on flavored cigarettes (menthol excluded, of course), other governments are taking even more drastic steps against flavored tobacco. First Canada:
Canada has banned the manufacture, importation and sale of most flavored cigarettes and small cigars, which have been slammed as little more than an enticement to get children to start smoking. [Again, menthol excluded.]
The law, which came into effect on Thursday, was backed by both government and opposition lawmakers. It also bans tobacco advertising in newspapers and magazines, closing a loophole that had allowed ads in publications that claimed they were read only by adults.
Then New York City:
The council, by a count of 46-1, voted to ban the sale of all flavored tobacco in the city, with the exception of tobacco used in pipes and hookahs. This goes a step further than the recent FDA ban, which banned flavored cigarettes (including cloves, but not menthol), because it bans flavored little cigars and chewing tobacco. Mayor Bloomberg has 10 days to decide to sign or veto the measure. If signed, the ban could go into effect in 120 days.
These bans are, in essence, forbidding the processing of tobacco to make it taste good. This sets a dangerous precedent for premium cigars. Might cask-aged cigars be next? Why allow leaves to be cured at all? After all, the aging process “masks” the harsh flavors of tobacco just as surely as adding a dollop of fruit-flavor does.
And after we do that, why not ban the flavoring of any other product that can be unhealthy?
[Via The Stogie Guys.]
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The AP reports on a troubling new trend:
The nation’s top distributor of clove cigarettes is offering fans a new way to get their fix after the spice-flavored cigarettes are banned at the end of this month—cigars.
The new filtered cigars—close to the size of a cigarette and flavored with clove, vanilla and cherry—allow Kretek International Inc., which imports Djarum-brand tobacco products from Indonesia, to avoid new federal laws banning flavored cigarettes other than menthol.
The ban on flavored cigarettes, which critics say appeal to teenagers, doesn’t include cigars.
The difference? Cigarettes are wrapped in thin paper, cigars in tobacco leaves. While the cigars also are made with a different kind of tobacco, the taste is similar. The cigars come 12 to a pack, rather than 20 for cigarettes, but cost nearly half as much.
Why is this troubling? Not because people will continue smoking killer cloves. Not even because cigar shops may now be filled with their powerful aroma. No, it’s troubling because it will attract the government’s attention to cigars:
Whether the cigars are truly different or just an attempt to circumvent the ban by making superficial changes is in the hands of the FDA, said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
“The key is the legislation gives the FDA the authority to respond to these types of frankly totally irresponsible actions,” Mr. Myers said.
Mr. Myers joined executives from the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association and the Amercian Legacy Foundation late last month urging the FDA to take a closer look at the issue.
Regulation of cigars is currently fairly light, allowing for the development of new brands and competition among them. And as an essentially pure agricultural product — they’re just rolls of cured leaves — that’s the way things ought to be. If the FDA or Congress starts turning its attention to cigars there’s no telling what harm they could to the industry.
I wrote about the pseudoscientific absurdity of banning flavored tobacco here.
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The Los Angeles Times editorial board writes today in favor of the bill giving the FDA authority over tobacco because, uh, regulation is good and stuff. They urge the agency to work quickly once the law goes into effect to ban menthol cigarettes, since menthol masks the harsh taste of tobacco and causes people to smoke more.
I agree! But I don’t think we should stop there. Alcohol and obesity also kill thousands of Americans every year, and with a few simple changes to American food and drink products we can save countless lives:
No more aging whiskies — Did you know that aging whiskey in a barrel for several years masks the harsh flavor of spirits coming straight from the still? It’s true! If we ban aging and force distillers to sell only white dog, we can cut whiskey consumption in no time.
No more hops in beer — People would drink much less beer if we stopped balancing out malts with those pesky, flavorful cones.
No more toppings and condiments — Nefarious fast-food companies trick consumers into eating their hamburgers by masking the taste of beef with tasty things like ketchup, mustard, and mayo. Forcing them to sell plain meat on a bun would do wonders for the national waistline.
No more milk chocolate — Dark chocolate is good for you, milk chocolate not so much. Bye bye, Mars bars!
No more vanilla lattes — Coffee is naturally bitter. For too long Starbucks has been addicting its customers to caffeine by masking that bitterness with sugary syrups. A venti caramel Frappuccino with whipped cream? 500 calories. A single espresso? 5 calories. The way forward is clear.
See, saving lives is easy when all you have to do is make the products people like taste bad. If only the FDA had control over all our consumption decisions, how healthy we all could be!
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Michael Siegel links to this excellent article in Slate by Paul Smalera (in which he is extensively quoted). Smalera does a great job explaining the flaws and inconsistencies in the FDA tobacco bill. However he does slip into a pernicious way of thinking about the menthol cigarette exemption and race that needs to be challenged and avoided.
Smalera pushes the idea that this bill is “racist” because it bans the cigarette flavors that virtually no one smokes and exempts the one that many people do smoke, especially if they happen to be black. (Though, as he notes, the total number of white menthol smokers is approximately twice that of black menthol smokers.) In any other context, the racist move would be to ban the product that’s strongly preferred by African-American consumers; here it’s considered racist not to ban it. This idea portrays blacks in particular as helpless victims of tobacco companies who must be treated like children by a protective government.
In contrast, here is what non-racist tobacco policy would look like: Educate people about the dangers of cigarettes, tax them at a reasonable level, work aggressively to keep them out of the hands of minors, and then let all consumers — yes, even blacks! — make their own decisions about what, if anything, they choose to smoke.
The real reason the FDA bill exempts menthol has nothing to do with race: Menthol cigarettes make money and thus have lobbying power behind them. Clove, grape, and chocolate cigarettes don’t make much money and thus don’t have lobbying power behind them. End of story.
Unfortunately, the FDA bill is almost certain to pass and we will all be stuck with a law that, for all the reasons Smalera elucidates, will be good for virtually no one except Philip Morris. There are plenty of reasons to oppose it, not the least of which is the question of whether the government has any business at all forbidding adults from buying flavored cigarettes. The constant introduction of race into the debate distracts from these more important issues.
Update: Paul Smalera responds in the comments.
Previously:
Blunt racism
Cigars for me, but not for thee
Freshly minted bias
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The Washington Post reminds us of one more reason not to vote for Obama or McCain in November: they’re both co-sponsors of the bill to put tobacco products under oversight of the FDA. The Post supports this, of course, presumably on the theory that regulation is always good and regulation of evil tobacco companies is even better. The fact that Philip Morris supports the proposal too suggests it’s not as good an idea as they believe it to be.
If this becomes law, makers of alternative tobacco products, such as smokeless tobacco, will be explicitly forbidden from mentioning in advertising or any other forum that their product is safer than cigarettes, even though this is true. The development and marketing of safer cigarettes could be blocked and “low tar” labels eliminated. The FDA could mandate lower nicotine levels, causing current smokers to inhale more cigarettes to ingest the same dose. Smokers who prefer flavored cigarettes are completely screwed, as every flavor except for menthol will be banned. This is all to the good of Philip Morris, maker of the popular Marlboro menthol brand; new restrictions on advertising and the costs of complying with new regulations will prevent smaller companies from eating into its market share, while denying consumers valuable information about the relative safety of other forms of tobacco will keep other competition at bay. (See this Reason article for details.)
This bill will not hurt Philip Morris and won’t keep consumers safe. It will eliminate consumer choice, secure the Big Tobacco oligopoly, and ensure that existing smokers are more likely to die from their habit. Bush, to his credit, has opposed it. In this regard, at least, his replacement will be significantly worse that he is.
Previously:
Freshly minted bias
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That’s the question Jacob Sullum asks in his new article at Reason. Read it here.
Last week I sent the following letter to The New York Times:
Thursday’s article about legislation to ban all cigarette flavorings except menthol quotes former federal health secretaries arguing that the bill “discriminates against African-Americans.” If any proposal could be said to discriminate against African-Americans, it is perhaps the idea that we should prohibit the menthol cigarettes that three-quarters of black smokers prefer. To deny them their choice is to imply that they cannot be trusted to make their own decisions and that they are helpless victims of marketing; in short, to treat them like the children the bill is intended to protect.
There are many reasons to oppose the Philip Morris-backed legislation to give the FDA regulatory authority over tobacco, including manipulation by the industry, loss of variety, and potential bans on safer alternatives to existing cigarettes. Introducing race into the debate is a distraction from these important considerations.
They printed this one from the president of Lorillard Tobacco instead.
Previously:
Freshly minted bias
Cigars for me, but not for thee
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The New York Times ran another article by Stephanie Saul today about the menthol exemption to the proposed ban on flavored cigarettes. Since black smokers are the largest buyers of menthol cigarettes, the issue is becoming entangled in racial politics. For example:
The bill’s treatment of menthol “caves to the financial interests of tobacco companies and discriminates against African-Americans — the segment of our population at greatest risk for the killing and crippling smoking-related diseases,” the letter from the former [federal health] secretaries said. “It sends a message that African American youngsters are valued less than white youngsters.”
Or this, from Saul’s previous article:
Menthol is particularly controversial because public health authorities have worried about its health effects on African-Americans. Nearly 75 percent of black smokers use menthol brands, compared with only about one in four white smokers.
That is why one former public health official says the legislation’s menthol exemption is a “cave-in to the industry,” an opinion shared by some other public health advocates.
“I think we can say definitively that menthol induces smoking in the African-American community and subsequently serves as a direct link to African-American death and disease,” said the former official, Robert G. Robinson, who retired two years ago as an associate director in the office of smoking and health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
She’s right about the financial interest: the menthol exemption is clearly a sop to Phillip Morris, the only tobacco company backing the bill. And she’s right that there’s no logical reason for allowing only menthol as a flavoring, except for the fact that it’s the flavor most consumers of flavored tobacco actually want. It’s dubious, however, to say that this discriminates against blacks. Whatever the current market shares may be, there’s no reason to think that if other flavorings are banned consumers of all races won’t switch to menthol.
In fact, it’s perverse to say that not banning a product that’s enjoyed by many African-American adults is a form of racial discrimination. To do so implies that blacks are victims of marketing, cannot responsibly make their own decisions, and need to be coercively protected from flavored tobacco products; basically, that they should be treated like children. The alternative view — that however regrettable heavy menthol cigarette use among African-Americans may be, the choice should be theirs to make — doesn’t even merit a mention within the The Times‘ reporting pages.
I don’t believe that either side in this debate is truly motivated by racism. However, if reporters are going to print allegations of discrimination in their coverage of it, they should consider that public health activists are no more immune to racial bias than anyone else.
See also Jacob’s Sullum’s coverage of the issue for Reason:
The Times Discovers the Tobacco Bill’s Flavoritism
FDA-Approved Cancer Sticks
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Jacob Grier is a freelance writer, barista, mixologist, and magician in Portland, OR. He writes, eats, and drinks a lot. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Reason Online, The Oregonian, and other publications.
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