Eighty national public health groups, including the American Heart Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Preventative Medicine, placed a full-page ad in Sunday’s edition of the Washington Post in support of a federal ban on menthol in cigarettes and all flavored cigars.
“The answer is clear,” the full-page ad says. “Saving lives starts by ending the sale of menthol cigarettes and all flavored cigars.
“Smoking kills nearly half a million people in the United States each year, and these addictive, deadly products are a big part of the problem. The FDA and White House have our full support to release lifesaving rules prohibiting menthol cigarettes and all flavored cigars.”
When are we going to start banning flavored alcohol like White Claw and Mike’s while we’re at it
Please don’t joke this into existence
It worked out so well the last time we tried.
Menthol and other flavoured cigarettes were banned in the EU years ago, and I don’t recall much of a fuss, not sure why this would be an issue in the US.
My experience was that long time smokers weren’t the ones smoking menthol and other weird stuff, it was mostly kids that didn’t like tobacco.
I was referring to the comment about banning certain types of booze in the US and what happened when we tried that before.
Yep, I know. Which is why I pointed to the example that is actually relevant, as the EU passed this exact law years ago.
But I don’t suppose you troubled yourself with that, and I get it. Going down that road might actually force you to reconsider your perspective at some point, or alternatively, deal with a massive and inconvenient cognitive dissonance, so instead you chose the safe path and stick to your cautionary tale because it validates your reasoning, if we just ignore for a moment the fact that it’s irrelevant regarding this specific instance and a better source was available to educate us about the effects of this legislation.
Yeah, I don’t know what has your panties in such a twist, but I also don’t really care enough about you or menthol cigarettes to be a part of it, so you’ll have to pick a fight with someone else.
I was just making a joke about America’s history of banning things people like.
There ain’t to laws when you cracking claws.
That would just result in people making their own mixed drinks. Kinda pointless.
Flavored cigarettes and cigars are more challenging to DIY
You do have a point but the danger is far higher on the tabaco side. Priorities and such, we won’t see anything like that for quite some time.
Is it though? I’m pretty sure alcohol is the most destructive legal drug there is. But prohibition didn’t go so great last time so don’t take that as a call to start banning sweet alcohol, I just disagree with the assertion that tobacco is worse.
According to global statistics, Alcohol was responsible for 5% of global deaths, while tobacco squeaked past with 8% of global deaths.
I’m suggesting that the negative health effects are more pronounced with tobacco.
And I disagree. I’ve been around a lot of barely functioning alcoholics in my life. But this isn’t me arguing that you’re flat out wrong, just questioning it because it doesn’t line up with my experience.
And yet someone with real data posted something that says that tobacco actually causes more deaths. I presume that yours was the one downvote.
Nah. I rarely downvote unless someone says something exceptionally stupid. I might argue that deaths is a narrow way to measure, but it’s certainly valid and facts are facts. I’m glad that was posted.
For the record I’m not attempting to disagree with you. When you add in the collateral toll that alcohol takes, its impact may indeed be greater than tobacco. I was referring specifically to the toxicity of cigarettes. Although there is likely a safe amount of alcohol you can consume, there is no safe level of smoking you can take on. My comments have been confined specifically to this area.
The real priority is to work to eliminate the power of public health to dictate private life choices.
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I have maybe a cigar a month. Sometimes, a nice dipped cigar is enjoyable. It’d be a shame to just outright ban them.
I sort of feel like this is the equivalent of banning white claws or even everything other than IPAs. During the summer I have a cigar most days. Once the temps drop below 60, I’m done with tobacco for six months or so. I don’t smoke flavored cigars, but I don’t like it for those who do.
Welcome to the ‘all drugs are bad unless I do them’ mentality.
Yeah, it’s unfortunate. I understand it. The flavours do make smoking more enticing to young people, who might not limit themselves to one cigar a month like you do. But it does suck to ban something outright just because some people will misuse it. Mind you, nicotine is addictive, which is a pretty critical facet to this (though I don’t think anyone starts smoking without knowing this risk).
I dislike smoking in general and do want things that are good for society as a whole. But the logic of banning stuff like this seems similar to, say, banning fast food because some people will overeat (or more extreme, having calorie rationing so that people can’t overeat on any kind of food). It’s admittedly always a balancing act for how much danger is acceptable before we just ban it for everyone. Some bans using this logic are very reasonable, some aren’t, and many are extremely debatable.
I think I currently prefer the sin tax approach, especially since that best accomodates occasional usage. A hefty tax makes the dangerous thing less accessible to impressionable young people and helps pay for the social cost (though IIRC, smokers actually cost society less because they die younger, reducing the many medical costs of old age). Price influences people’s choices, too. If healthy food is cheaper than unhealthy food, that encourages buying healthy stuff. But even sin taxes are imperfect, especially in a vacuum. They can make the cost of living higher for a vulnerable population. They need to be planned carefully.
Tobacco is fucking horrible, but Menthol and other flavorings make it so much worse. They increase the likelihood of addiction massively.
And is always the case in public health, you don’t put in rules to cater to the edge cases, you put in rules to protect the majority affected.
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Tell me you’re not a smoker without telling me you’re not a smoker.
You clearly have no idea how tobacco addiction works.
Prohibition doesn’t work. Mind your own fucking business.
I can tell that you’re addicted just by the vitriol in your response here.
Did you start of menthols and other flavored tobacco? Because that’s how a lot of people start. Which is why people are pushing for a ban, so others won’t be as hopelessly addicted as you are.
Fuck you.
It’s my choice.
Mind your own fucking business you fucking asshole.
Here, childhood obesity is a MUCH larger issue than smoking.
Go ban all the artificial flavorings that are in all of the different bowls of sugar, ahem, breakfast cereals, that are shamefully aimed at children in an effort to give them diabetes, just leave the aisle full of plain rasin bran.
Do that and I’ll believe it’s about health and the kids and not simply a power trip controlling another person’s choices.
A lifetime of doctors visits, insulin vials, insulin pumps, blood sugar meters, etc are bleeding this country FAR more than 80 year olds with lung cancer (that probably wasnt even caused by the tobacco).
Go ban all the artificial flavorings that are in all of the different bowls of sugar, ahem, breakfast cereals, that are shamefully aimed at children
We should do that, without question. Marketing candy to children as part of a balanced breakfast should be a crime.
Your last sentence, dude. 🤣 Way to ruin your credibility.
Are you suggesting that bad eating habits cause type 1 diabetes?
Wow, denying that tobacco causes cancer is a level of delusion that I had thought died out with the 5th or 6th Marlboro Man (who all died of cancer).
Do you want to know one of the causes of cancer from Tobacco? It might surprise you.
But you’ll ignore this because you’re hopelessly addicted to nicotine, one of the single most addictive chemicals known.
You try to deflect with whataboutisms, but guess what? People are trying to solve those health problems as well. You’re just pissed that they’re trying to solve one that affects your personal addiction.
In places where healthcare is vaguely civilized, your unhealthy addiction becomes my business because it comes with negative social externalities in the form of additional cost and strain on a public health service.
Edit: Spelling
This is an article and discussion specifically about a federal ban in the US. So, unless you live here, it’s not your business.
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That’s not even getting into the possible “fun suprises” we’ll have from all of the microplastics in our bodies.
Should we ban junk food then? How about a fat tax? I’d wager obesity is a far bigger strain on the healthcare system than smoking is.
Doesn’t sound very civilized at all.
Sounds judgy, controlling, biased, and miserable.
That’s what you get from government run healthcare
Exactly why I’m so strongly against government run healthcare
I personally was addicted before I ever had even a single puff, and plenty of others started the same way I did. I took a job to earn spending money as a 13 y/o kid cause I wanted Secret of Mana and that was a $60 or $70 game. So I went down the road to the nearest tobacco farm, and started stripping tobacco for $4.25 an hour. I left each 4 hour shift with about ½cm of black tar completely coating the palms and fingers of my hands. After two weeks cigarettes smelled good. I’m far from alone in this experience. So, no. Menthol and flavorings actually cause me to turn down cigarettes, I like the taste of tobacco.
You’re just being ignorant and holier than thou.
Do a lot of teens work on tobacco farms for their first exposure to nicotine? No, that was just you?
I mean, you also bring up the specter of unsafe child labor. That’s something else that we need to tackle, but we can also ban flavorings that make the tobacco more addictive to those who didn’t spend their childhood harvesting tobacco.
Yes. Of my graduating class of 300, about 100 of us worked on the tobacco farms. In tobacco country this is a very common way for teens to make money. Note, I was working because I chose to. That doesn’t fall under child labor. I’m sure some of the other teens were working because they had to.
You were a child who was working. That’s child labor. Full stop.
You also were exposed to harmful chemicals. Even if you “wanted” to be there, you should not have been.
So you worked, got a video game, and a lifelong addiction. And you think that was a good thing?
But it still doesn’t matter. Yours is an edge case. This proposed ban on flavorings for tobacco is meant to help prevent thousands from getting addicted in the first place.
Here’s how it works. A given teen will, at some point, try a cigarette. If it’s flavored, they are statistically more likely to try a second. If you ban flavorings, then that second cigarette will be less likely.
We know that nicotine is more addictive than pretty much any other chemical out there, but it’s not instantly addictive. The goal is to make smoking as unpleasant as possible. Which will also save the lives of some people who are currently addicted.
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We need to ban public health
Urgh, when they banned them in my country it was with this same stupid logic.
Now I don’t smoke (quit 15ish years ago) but this idea that anything flavoured somehow MUST be for the purpose of marketing towards children is insane. It manages to be wrong in two opposite ways:
One: This implies that anything with flavor is not for adults and everyone over the age of majority goes home to enjoy our grey flavourless mush.
Two: This implies that the flavors involved must be what appeals most to children. You know those menthol and whisky tipped smokes that all the children go nuts for.
This logic falls apart (both ways) when you look at any other legal market like booze, weed or vape.
It is almost as if after the US lost the war on drugs they want to try again on a smaller scale.
The flavour makes it so more people start. So it is good to ban it.
Does it? I have not been convinced. Also by that logic why should other not healthy things be flavoured? Why can you buy flavoured malt liquor, weed gummies, vapes or edible panties? With this same logic junk food should taste like sadness and regret for the future health of the children (won’t someone think of the children).
How this does not come off as ludicrous to anyone makes me question my own sanity. If smoking was such an issue and potential future addiction had to be stopped, banning the nicotine (you know the addictive) makes more sense then allowing the sale of the same addictive product as long as it does not taste minty.
People who think smokers smoke for the flavor are not in touch with reality. This will do nothing for public health.
I think it will. It will drive menthols underground and they’ll become more dangerous just like alcohol during Prohibition.
You can just buy menthol infusers online. This law will do nothing
Like every time this comes up, this is straight up racism.
If they actually cared about protecting children, they’d put quality control restrictions on the fluids used in vape pens to prevent popcorn lung and the like BECAUSE KIDS DON’T REALLY SMOKE CIGARETTES ANYMORE.
You know who disproportionately smokes menthols and flavored cigarellos?
Black people.
If they actually had something against smoking, they’d ban ALL CIGARETTES.
If they were actually trying to protect kids, they’d go after what kids are using.
They’re going after the smoke of choice for large portions of the black community.
What does that tell you?
Is it really, though? My country banned menthols ages ago, because it made cigarettes less nasty and thus easier to get into. Makes sense to me. We don’t have the amount of segregation here like in the US. At least not racially-based. Not saying there isn’t any, but it’s definitely not on the same level.
Is it really, though?
Unfortunately, historically speaking, in the U.S. it both is and has been.
It is virtually impossible to get into any discussion involving menthol cigarettes in america without also getting into a discussion about the black community they were specifically marketed towards.
Literally:
Tobacco companies offered grants to HBCUs, sponsored hip-hop and jazz music festivals, and supported civil rights institutions including the NAACP. In the 1980s, industry-sponsored vans distributed free cigarette samples in the streets of Houston’s Black neighborhoods. The program would later expand to 50 cities.
“A total of 1.9M samples will be distributed to targeted smokers in 1983,” industry officials wrote in a Kool Market Development Program document. “Sample distribution will be targeted to: housing projects, clubs, community organizations and events where Kool’s Black young adult target congregate.”
An R.J. Reynolds executive actually said: “We don’t smoke that s—t. We just sell it. We reserve the right to smoke for the young, the poor, the Black and stupid.”
The reason a targeted menthol/flavored ban is problematic is that since something like 85% of black smokers choose menthols…
…that means this ban gives police ANOTHER free ticket to harass just about any black man, woman, or child/teen they see smoking. They’d likely get away with calling it “probable cause” which is twelve kinds of fucked up.
If they cared about public health they would do one of two things:
1: Ban all cigarettes
2: Use awareness campaigns (THESE ARE PROVEN TO WORK, LOOK AT THE DECLINE OF THE YOUTH SMOKING RATE)
Given the other viable options it is really, really hard to see this as anything other than a racially targeted decision.
Yikes. Today I learnt, unfortunately…
If we don’t stand with smokers and stop the American Heart Association now, then by the time it comes to force us to eat right and exercise, it’ll be too late.
I’d love to stand with smokers, but standing makes me winded.
Have you run a marathon this week? No? Your medical insurance rates are 2x until you resolve this problem.
Sigh. The only good drugs are the ones I take.
Let’s stop policing what people put in their bodies, eh?
Non-menthol cigs are fine, we just can’t stand for the ones black people prefer.
Didn’t know I was black.
congratulations!
🥳
When they banned flavored cigarettes where I am, they had to make a carveout for menthol cigarettes. The claim at thie time was, banning menthol was racist because black people mostly smoke menthols. Early aughts ftr.
That’s hilarious. Next the ATF is going to bring back 4 loko because it’s ageist not to have preventable heart attacks in your teens.
Or you know, we could just regulate and test what goes into these products rather than create another black market for ones that will only inevitably be produced with even less quality overseas and imported
I don’t smoke but isn’t flavored vape essentially the same and that is legal?
Lots of places are banning those too.
Which is really stupid, because they’re also banning the zero-nicotine ones that aren’t harmful and aren’t addictive (though may be habit-forming in the same way as snacking or drinking any beverage). Also they’re useful to people trying to quit smoking because even the ones with nicotine are far less harmful than smoking.
is it?
you have to invest quite a bit more than the $6 that a pack of menthol cigarettes is going to cost into a vaporizer setup.
vaporizers also dont use tobacco, but nicotine, and have varying levels of nicotine - some formulations have no nicotine. there’s also no tar or the 400+ chemicals involved with burning tobacco.
$6 that a pack of menthol cigarettes
Not sure where you are, but a pack is almost $25 here.
wow where is that?
New York. For better or worse, they’re essentially trying to tax people out of smoking.
Unless you’re going to a reservation any cigarettes you buy are going to be at least $15 a pack. The bigger the city the bigger the price.
$6 a pack was like 30 years ago
1993 I could get a pack of GPCs for $0.99. The name brands were about $2.00 a pack when bought as a carton. I remember watching the prices climb, hearing NYC was like $8.00, and I was like fuuuuuck.
It’s probably $6-7 in KY, NC, and SC still. I was in Lexington KY last year this time, and IIRC the packs were around that. I roll with a topomatic so I get pipe tobacco which runs $22 a pound in CA where I live, and was $13 a pound in KY. Just not for Camels, Newports, or Marlboro those are all like $10 in KY
Oh NC is like a magical land of good cigarette prices. If you’re a snowbird that doesn’t fly you’re stopping in NC and loading up.
There are very few places in the US where a pack of cigarettes is $15+
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Disposable vapes should be illegal for sure. Everywhere. Like it’s not fucking hard to change a coil. It’s not hard to even wrap a coil and change a cotton wick. Disposables are the shittiest laziest things and create insane amounts of waste, like you said.
Quick edit: make your own juice, wrap your own coils, and vaping is basically free from then on.
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What the fuck?
There are flavoured cigars?
I don’t know about “real” cigars, but they make the ones people roll blunts with in a bunch of different flavors like vanilla and grape.
“Real” cigars tend to be flavored with things like whisky or other alcohols. But anyone who draws an arbitrary line defining what is and isn’t a real cigar, it starts to feel gatekeepy, so I just live and let live. If someone smokes grape cigars and enjoys them, more power to them.
Totally agree! I guess “regular” cigar would have been better? I smoke both cigars and blunts and have no issue with either, I just don’t know what they call the wrap ones.
I used to smoke flavored cigarettes. When they were made illegal where I live they were modified and re-released as flavored cigarillos(mini cigars).
They were similar, but different enough that I no longer enjoyed smoking them.
Blunt wraps are what these are mainly targeting I imagine (Backwoods, Swisher Sweets, White Owls)… BUT Acid cigars are pretty nice and the brand I always point out. They used to advertise in cigar magazines back when I would read them and would feature interesting rolling methods that leaned in to the name. (Cheaper end as far as cigars go)
Alcohol causes more problems in society than tobacco.
Okay, hear me out here. We should ban smoking meat next. Just the stuff that has been marinated or seasoned. You know, for the kids.
