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When it comes to tobacco, it’s been said that “menthol helps the poison go down easier.”

And it’s true. The cooling, anesthetic effect and flavor of menthol helps disguise the harshness of tobacco and has lured generations of Americans into tobacco use, leading to lifelong addiction, disease and risk of death from lung and heart disease and cancer.

Now, after being pushed to do so for years, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has finally announced two rules that would prohibit the sale of menthol cigarettes and all flavored cigars. The agency is taking public comment on the measure through July 5.

If adopted, these health protections will save lives by reducing youth smoking and helping current users to quit. Tobacco use kills an estimated 480,000 people in the U.S. each year and is still our nation’s leading cause of preventable death.

The FDA estimates that prohibiting menthol cigarettes would reduce smoking by 15% and save between 324,000 and 654,000 lives over the course of the next 40 years.  

The proposed rules also would remove a significant on-ramp to youth smoking. The low cost and candy flavors of little cigars (cigarillos) make them appealing to kids, as does the cooling effect of menthol. The rules also would address serious health disparities resulting from the marketing of these products. Along with being used to target kids, Big Tobacco has intentionally and relentlessly marketed menthol cigarettes and cigars to Black, low-income and LGBTQ+ people.

What the rules won’t do, unfortunately, is end the sale of flavored e-cigarettes, which are addicting youth in Montana and across the country in epidemic numbers. In Montana, 30% of high school students currently use e-cigarettes. The FDA is working to address the impact of e-cigarettes separately, but it is moving much too slowly to prevent thousands of kids from becoming addicted.

The Montana Legislature isn’t helping, either. Among numerous other bills passed during the last session that interfere with local decision making, it passed a bill intended to stop local communities from adopting policies that protect kids from being targeted with flavored e-cigarette products. Local communities should push back on this bad legislation and act to protect their kids. And lawmakers going to Helena next year should pass bills that protect Montana kids, not Big Tobacco.

In the meantime, the FDA’s proposed rules on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars are well worth supporting. According to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, an estimated 1,900 Montana kids now under age 18 will die from smoking. We can save these lives. Montanans can submit comments in support of the FDA rule on menthol cigarettes here: 

www.federalregister.gov/d/2022-08994 and on flavored cigars here: www.federalregister.gov/d/2022-08993

Liz Albers, Montana Government Relations Director, American Heart Association; Carrie Nyssen, Senior Director of Advocacy, American Lung Association in Montana

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