Cool, Minty and Toxic: What to Do About the Problem of Menthol in Tobacco Products

Menthol cigarettes have been used for years to target vulnerable populations and are consumed by nearly half of all youth smokers.  Yet when Congress prohibited most cigarettes with flavorings as part of the 2009 Tobacco Control Act, it exempted the most important flavoring of all: menthol.  As a result, state and local governments are beginning to tackle the problem of menthol.  Chicago has prohibited the sale of menthol tobacco products near schools, and a bill in the Hawaii Legislature would prohibit the sale of menthol flavored cigarettes altogether.  These policy options raise complex legal questions which the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium, the nation’s leading legal tobacco control network, is researching and analyzing.  

This session will start by describing the public health problems posed by mentholated tobacco products.  It will then describe the actions which the FDA has taken (and failed to take) to address this public health crisis.  The bulk of the presentation will describe innovative policy approaches that state and local governments could implement to address the burden of menthol.  The most direct policy approach would be a state or local government prohibition on the sale of mentholated cigarettes.  Yet policy options short of a sales prohibition could also address the issue: restrictions on which establishments can sell mentholated tobacco products, increasing the price of mentholated tobacco products compared to other tobacco products, disclosure requirements, or marketing restrictions.  This session will provide units of government with the information they need to prioritize interventions that address this challenging area.