By John Payton

Before we can analyze whether banning menthol as a tobacco flavor would lead to a market in contraband menthol cigarettes we must first clarify our terminology. Contraband market: That term is today used to describe lawfully made cigarettes that are unlawfully sold without the collection of a state cigarette tax. That is contraband for sure, but that is not at all what would happen if menthol were banned as a tobacco flavor.

Take Newports – the largest menthol brand on the market. Every Newport cigarette is manufactured in the United States by Lorillard Tobacco. None are imported. So, if in order to make cigarettes less attractive to kids the FDA banned menthol as a tobacco flavor, no Newports would be manufactured. That result could be easily verified by the FDA by monitoring the Lorillard manufacturing facilities. If there were no Newports manufactured, obviously there would be no contraband market in Newports.

John Payton, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc

What about counterfeit Newports? Well, cigarettes are the result of highly refined manufacturing processes protected by patents and secrecy. Newports are not the exception but the rule. You cannot simply spray menthol on tobacco and have a successful menthol cigarette. A lot of lawful and very clever tobacco companies have failed to compete with Newports. And anyway, where would these cigarettes be manufactured? Who would do it? Where would the tobacco come from? We have no such market anywhere. After the FDA banned the other flavorings – chocolate, vanilla, etc – which were used to flavor cigarettes no contraband market developed. And none will with respect to menthol cigarettes either.

So, back to the main point. Menthol-flavored cigarettes are disproportionately marketed to African Americans because they’re preferred by 87 percent of African-American kids who smoke, and by 80 percent of all African-American smokers. Just 22 percent of white smokers prefer menthols.

The FDA acted because it recognized flavored cigarettes are particularly appealing to youth: they mask the harshness of tobacco with a sweet or minty taste. But menthol makes smoking even more palatable to new smokers by stimulating cold receptors, soothing the throat and easing the discomfort associated with smoking. Menthol is, therefore, disproportionately smoked by younger and newer smokers. Almost half of young smokers smoke menthols, compared with less than one-third of smokers over the age of 25. In addition, 60 percent of smokers in middle-school smoke menthols—the highest rates among all age groups. Newport, the top-selling menthol brand, has only a 10 percent market share, but the brand is smoked by 17 percent of new smokers

These facts underscore that being young is a crucial factor in becoming addicted to smoking. Most smokers –some 80 percent — start smoking when they’re in their teens or younger. If kids don’t pick up the smoking habit before they become adults, they’re unlikely to ever do so. So, banning menthol is of critical importance is helping more kids to avoid the smoking habit.

Smoking cigarettes is cancer-causing habit, one that African-Americans smokers have an especially difficult time kicking. It takes a fearsome toll on the health of smokers, especially African-American smokers, who suffer hospitalization and death from smoking at rates greater than whites. They cost individuals and the insurance industry billions of dollars in medical care. Contrary to the glamorous and “fun” image the tobacco industry pushes through its multi-billion advertising campaigns, cigarettes are the cause of immeasurable sadness.

This is the cost of the addiction to cigarette smoking – aided and abetted by menthol flavoring in cigarettes – the tobacco industry has levied on black Americans. This reality is why the Food and Drug Administration must add to its responsibility to protect Americans from all manner of unsafe products by banning menthol in cigarettes.

John Payton is President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc