# Banning menthol cigarettes **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 28, 2021, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973 "2021-04-28T19:02:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/21 "2021-04-29T06:04:16Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > {…} If menthol cigs are banned, won’t a clever entrepreneur market drops designed to add menthol flavor to tobacco or cigarettes? Like [Camel Crush](https://www.google.com/search?q=camel+crush+menthol&newwindow=1&rlz=1C1CHHM_enUS766US767&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7wuiH46LwAhUOXc0KHTiuA78Q_AUoAnoECAEQBA&biw=1066&bih=496)? You can buy the capsules (and insert them into the filters yourself) in many flavors on Amazon. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/22 "2021-04-29T07:58:03Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > We see how well that worked with weed. I highly doubt a prohibition on menthols is going to lead to people growing and aging tobacco in their basement. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/23 "2021-04-29T10:48:01Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Like [Camel Crush](https://www.google.com/search?q=camel+crush+menthol&newwindow=1&rlz=1C1CHHM_enUS766US767&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7wuiH46LwAhUOXc0KHTiuA78Q_AUoAnoECAEQBA&biw=1066&bih=496)? You can buy the capsules (and insert them into the filters yourself) in many flavors on Amazon Ahh, the product already exists? Cool. Or Kool, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/24 "2021-04-29T12:52:30Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > Yes, we have a situation here where so many black guys are constantly killed for petty BULLSHIT reasons that I can’t even keep their names straight anymore. I thought they were killed resisting or fleeing. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/25 "2021-04-29T13:35:28Z")
What about shisha (flavored wet tobacco for hookah smoking), is that still legal? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/26 "2021-04-29T14:00:37Z")
To inject facts into what seemingly has degenerated into a civil rights debate: There are health issues that go beyond the black community. “Young adults who smoke menthol cigarettes are more likely to be female, black or Hispanic, or identify as LGBT compared to non-menthol smokers, according to [new research](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306460316302040) from the Truth Initiative® Young Adult Cohort Study and published in Addictive Behaviors.” “A similar pattern emerged with other flavored tobacco products, including [little cigars](https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/tag/cigarslittle-cigars), [hookah](https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/tag/hookah) and [smokeless tobacco](https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/tag/smokeless-tobacco). The survey results indicated that users of [flavored tobacco](https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/tag/flavors) are more likely to be young and female.” > **[New research sheds light on who smokes menthol cigarettes](https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/traditional-tobacco-products/new-research-sheds-light-who-smokes-menthol)** > > Young adults who smoke menthol cigarettes are more likely to be female, black or Hispanic, or identify as LGBT compared to non-menthol smokers The board of directors of this organization, for what it’s worth, appears to be more than one-third black. The CDC cites evidence that menthol cigarettes make it more attractive to start smoking, and harder to quit. [http://cdc.gov/tobacco/basic\_information/tobacco\_industry/menthol-cigarettes/index.html](http://cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/tobacco_industry/menthol-cigarettes/index.html) For more background: A crackdown on flavored vapes under the Trump administration got watered down, in part to exempt menthol flavor. Not pointing fingers at anyone in this thread, but it seems likely that right-wing opponents of the Biden Administration will be targeting a proposed menthol cigarette ban as part of a faux concern about impact on the black community. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/27 "2021-04-29T14:25:59Z")
I read about this proposal just a little while ago. I think it’s beyond stupid. And yes, there’s a paternalistic element to it. It is true that menthol cigarettes are far more popular among Black smokers than among white smokers. But it comes across wrong. It comes across as regulating the habits of Black people in a way that the bad habits of other people aren’t regulated. In New York, we’ve already got a paternalistic law that’s not dissimilar. Smoking is prohibited in all New York City Housing Authority buildings (a/k/a “the projects”). I think this is outrageous. We ban behavior in the projects (which are obviously inhabited by the far less wealthy among New Yorkers) which is entirely legal and unremarkable among the middle and upper classes. I see a menthol cigarette ban as more of the same. Go ahead, ban cigarettes (and tobacco in general). There’s an actual argument to be made in favor of a tobacco ban. But this selective ban, which will be perceived (with some justification) as being aimed mostly at Black smokers, is wrong-headed at best. And racist (in a paternalistic way) at worst. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/28 "2021-04-29T16:44:41Z")
That’s the point I was trying to make earlier–I broadly believe, and I think most of America believes, you **should be allowed to smoke even if it is bad for you** , people have, or ought have, free agency. If products have negative health effects that are well advertised and well known, I think they should generally be permitted to be sold. Exceptions of course would be products that are broadly dangerous to other people (which is why I am fine with many states tightly regulating fireworks and prohibiting the sale of some types of dangerous fireworks–if they _only_ blew the fingers off the idiots launching them and weren’t a risk to bystanders, I’d feel differently.) The argument for banning menthols seems to basically be “it will cause more black people to quit smoking, and it’s bad that they exist since they disproportionately are smoked by blacks, and we should protect black people from smoking.” There’s multiple things I find distasteful with that whole line of thinking. America is a country of many subcultures, some of which have different food, beverage and lifestyle choices. For example there are several traditional American Jewish culinary items that are infamously high in saturated fats and nitrates. I don’t think that justifies targeting regulations at them, on the logic that “well this stuff is mostly consumed by Jews and thus it would help Jewish health if we banned it.” Likewise I find it unpersuasive that most young people who use menthols are blacks. I suspect most young people who use unflavored cigarettes are not black. Should we ban regular cigarettes to protect those young people? It seems much more likely that black youth who choose to start smoking, smoke menthols because in the black subculture menthols are a much more popular variant of cigarettes. This doesn’t make menthols particularly “immoral” to me, it seems more like just a cultural difference between different cultural groups in America. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/29 "2021-04-29T17:49:45Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > America is a country of many subcultures, some of which have different food, beverage and lifestyle choices. For example there are several traditional American Jewish culinary items that are infamously high in saturated fats and nitrates. I don’t think that justifies targeting regulations at them, on the logic that “well this stuff is mostly consumed by Jews and thus it would help Jewish health if we banned it.” Weakening this analogy is the fact that you can have a pastrami sandwich every now and then without compromising your health. The same cannot be said for acquiring a smoking habit. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/30 "2021-04-29T18:15:21Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > The argument for banning menthols seems to basically be “it will cause more black people to quit smoking, and it’s bad that they exist since they disproportionately are smoked by blacks, and we should protect black people from smoking.” There’s multiple things I find distasteful with that whole line of thinking. I don’t think anyone actually made that argument. I think some people inferred that before all the facts were in. In fact, wasn’t it you yourself who mentioned that other flavors were banned in 2009, and menthol is merely the last flavor to get the ax? That suggests the opposite of it being about racial paternalism. > [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I fundamentally don’t agree that it’s the government’s job to make it so I can’t smoke tobacco if I want to–it’s government’s job to make sure tobacco companies aren’t allowed to lie about tobacco being healthy, it’s government’s job to warn us tobacco causes cancer and all that. I think I already pointed this out the first time you said it, but let me repeat: this isn’t about the government making it so you can’t smoke. It’s just a ban on a flavor, and I think you know that. People can still consume it all they want, businesses can still sell and distribute the dangerous drug. But it’s eminently reasonable to ban them from making it _more_ attractive or enticing. You can still kill yourself if you want, but it won’t be a mango-flavored suicide. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/31 "2021-04-29T18:21:17Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > You answered your own question, if they’re illegal, people will get them from the black market (I even mentioned that earlier). I doubt that. Look, it’s not the menthol it’s the nicotine they are addicted to. They will just switch to regular cigs or perhaps vaping. Vaping would be a small win. The FDA has already banned other flavored cigarettes, and I have not heard of any black market in those. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/32 "2021-04-29T18:23:08Z")
> **[FDA announces plan to ban menthol cigarettes, 'forever' targeted at Black...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/04/28/report-menthol-cigarette-ban-biden-administration-fda-may-propose/4871444001/)** > > The FDA on Thursday announced plans to ban menthol cigarettes, which have long been a target of anti-smoking advocates and civil rights groups. _In 2018, the [FDA moved to limit](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2018/11/09/fda-ban-flavored-electronic-cigarettes-vaping-teen-epidemic-menthol-tobacco/1940957002/) flavored e-cigarette products that appealed to children, including fruit and mint, but menthol was not included. That came nine years after the agency banned cigarettes with “characterizing flavors other than menthol,” which also appealed to youth._ and: _The majority of Black Americans who smoke use menthol cigarettes, according to the CDC, and a majority who started smoking began using menthol cigarettes. The product is more addictive than cigarettes without menthol, studies show, and has a cooling effect in the body._ ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/33 "2021-04-29T18:23:27Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > It’s just a ban on a flavor, and I think you know that No, it’s not “just a ban on a flavor.” It’s a ban on a variety of cigarette that is favored, and mostly consumed, by one particular ethnic/racial/cultural group. > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > But it’s eminently reasonable to ban them from making it _more_ attractive or enticing. You’re assuming that menthol cigarettes are more attractive or enticing. Given that most people who smoke don’t smoke menthol cigarettes, I don’t think that’s a given. > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > mango-flavored suicide Menthol cigarettes are simply not the same thing as some fruit-flavored shisha or other product smoked, as far as I can tell, by elderly men in Middle Eastern neighborhoods or by the occasional teenager fooling around with a hookah. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/34 "2021-04-29T18:26:03Z")
Good post. And note that Menthol cigs are more addictive. Big Tobacco has marketed menthol to blacks for decades. Is that because blacks prefer menthol or because it has been pushed on them by marketing? I suspect the latter. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/35 "2021-04-29T18:27:47Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > No, it’s not “just a ban on a flavor.” It’s a ban on a variety of cigarette that is favored, and mostly consumed, by one particular ethnic/racial/cultural group. Because Big Tobacco has pushed this more addictive version on the Black Community. Blacks are the victims here, not being penalized. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/36 "2021-04-29T18:28:26Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Big Tobacco has marketed menthol to blacks for decades And they’ve marketed Marlboros to white people for even longer. This proposal is specifically designed to target Black smokers. Nobody is talking about banning the brands that most white people smoke. That bothers me. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/37 "2021-04-29T18:29:45Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Big Tobacco has marketed menthol to blacks for decades. Is that because blacks prefer menthol or because it has been pushed on them by marketing? I suspect the latter. I suspect the former. Why would “Big Tobacco” push menthol to blacks specifically if they weren’t predisposed to like it already? The way marketing works is that you market your product to the segment most likely to buy it. Anyone suggesting that a business entity randomly decided to target a specific product to a specific group needs to come up with some sort of rational motivation before the claim can be taken seriously. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/38 "2021-04-29T18:30:05Z")
Yes, and it is because big Tobacco has pushed the more addictive menthol onto blacks. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/39 "2021-04-29T18:30:18Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Blacks are the victims here Are Black smokers of, say, Newports more “victims” than white smokers of Marlboros? ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973/40 "2021-04-29T18:38:30Z")
I don’t think that they invented menthol cigs for African Americans. I think that for whatever reason AAs tended to like them better decades ago so they marketed them towards the trend which caused them to be even more popular in the group and so on. Possibly unrelated but a friend of mine in college had a relative who was a high up executive in a tobacco company. She said that he thought that the link between cigarettes and cancer was bullshit (this would have been in the 70s) but he always warned her against menthols. According to him, they used the shittiest tobacco, basically floor scrapings, for those cigarettes since the menthol masked the flavor. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-menthol-cigarettes/940973.md?page=3)