New Frontiers in Tobacco Control: Media and Policy Arguments For and Against Banning Menthol 2008 - 2011

The 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act gave the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products. This historic achievement was controversial amongst tobacco control advocates, as a key provision banned all flavored additives to cigarettes, but exempted menthol. The law created the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee to inform the FDA on technical questions regarding regulation, which ruled in March 2011 that banning menthol would benefit the public health. Banning menthol is a key tobacco control issue, because menthol aids in smoking initiation, hinders quitting, and is the preferred cigarette for youth and African-Americans. Therefore we examined the arguments made in the news and in the scientific hearings by menthol ban advocates and opponents during the FSPTCA debate and TPSAC proceedings. We found that while advocates dominated the media during the FSPTCA bill debate, the tobacco industry and its allies were quoted much more often during the TPSAC hearings. We also found that advocates effectively made the case that exempting menthol unfairly left African-American smokers vulnerable to the tobacco industry when debating the Act. During the TPSAC hearings, however, ban advocates switched to arguing for the public health benefits of a ban. Meanwhile, the industry recruited African-American civil rights and law enforcement organizations to argue that banning menthol was unfair to African-American smokers who would be denied the right to smoke their preferred cigarette. We discuss the implications of these debates for the tobacco control movement as it processes this moment of federal-level policy making.