The Biden administration has once more delayed banning menthol cigarettes, infuriating officials of public health groups who say the products are liable for taking a whole lot of 1000’s of American lives.
On Wednesday, the White House quietly updated its Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website to reflect that any final ban on menthol would not happen until no less than March. Even then, it’s expected to take years for menthol products to be off store shelves. The ban was previously presupposed to take effect by the top of December.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Emily Holubowich, the American Heart Association’s national senior vp of federal advocacy. “We all know these products kill.”
The AHA and other public health organizations, akin to the American Lung Association and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, have been pushing to ban menthol tobacco products for well over a decade.
“If not now, when?” Holubowich said.
The Biden administration hadn’t responded to a request Wednesday afternoon to clarify the rationale for the delay. Although the Food and Drug Administration would enact the ban, the move to delay it’s within the hands of the Biden administration.
“It’s incredibly frustrating as a one that is devoted to public health and to health equity to see something like this continually be delayed,” said Dr. Avenal Joseph, the vp of policy on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Public health officials worry that there won’t be bandwidth to push for the ban in an election yr, as other political issues take center stage.
“In an election yr, policymaking tends to grind to a halt,” Holubowich said. “Individuals are distracted. They’re out campaigning.”
The issue with menthols
The tobacco industry has fought a menthol ban, suggesting it will force consumers to “turn to the illicit market.”
A “rise in illicit trade will end in increased prosecutions, arrests, and negative law enforcement interactions, particularly in communities of color where menthol smoking is most prevalent,” a spokesperson for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. said in a press release.
Public health experts immediately dismissed the argument as a problem separate from public health.
“Step one is to follow public health evidence” to ban sales of menthol products, Joseph said. “Then we will take care of appropriate enforcement responses and mechanisms needed to make certain that we’re not unduly targeting Black communities.”
“If we prohibited the sale of menthol cigarettes, it will literally be a game changer for public health,” she said.
When it’s added to tobacco products, menthol flavoring produces a cooling sensation within the throat. That reduces the tough taste and irritation of cigarette smoke, essentially making it easier to begin smoking and harder to stop, experts say.
Individuals who smoke menthol cigarettes are less likely than nonmenthol smokers to quit successfully, in accordance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Black Americans are affected most. Nearly 85% of Black smokers use menthols, in comparison with 30% of white smokers, in accordance with the FDA.
“Largely due to menthol cigarettes, Black Americans have a harder time quitting smoking and die at higher rates from tobacco-related diseases like cancer, heart disease and stroke,” Yolonda Richardson, the president and CEO of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said in a press release. “Research shows that prohibiting menthol cigarettes will save as much as 654,000 lives inside 40 years, including the lives of 255,000 Black Americans.”
Black men have the highest lung cancer death rate within the U.S. Based on the CDC, 157,000 African Americans died prematurely due to menthol cigarettes from 1980 to 2018.
The difficulty is the No. 1 health problem facing Dr. David Margolius, who heads the Department of Public Health for Cleveland. The town has one in all the very best smoking rates within the country, at 35% of adults, he said.
“This delay is atrocious. The longer that we wait, the harder it may be to finish the sale of menthol cigarettes,” Margolius said. “Any delay will end in more people dying on this country.”
