Should the FDA ban menthol cigarettes?

Reason TV takes a look at a new effort by the FDA to bar menthol cigarettes in the US. It follows an already-imposed ban on flavored cigarettes, including clove, chocolate, and other flavors used in some brands. No one doubts that cigarette smoking is not a healthy pastime and can be terribly addictive, but do menthols represent a larger danger than regular cigarettes? Are they really a “gateway smoke” to hook teens, or just a consumer choice that carries the same risks that have always been present? Reason argues that this is just another tactic in a larger plan to impose a Prohibition on tobacco use altogether:

Recently the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned “flavored” cigarettes, preventing the sale of clove and (the hitherto unknown) “chocolate” cigarettes. These “candy flavored” smokes hook teenagers by masking, according to one anti-smoking activist, “the taste of the poison.” And earlier this year, the FDA prevented the branding of cigarettes as “light” or “medium,” instead forcing manufacturers to rechristen them with innocuous names like “Marlboro Gold” and “Marlboro Blue.”

At the end of September, the FDA will announce the formation of a Menthol Subcommittee, which will review the available scientific literature on the health effects of menthol cigarettes. But are menthol cigarettes any worse for smokers than “non-flavored” cigarettes? Are they harder to quit, as anti-smoking activists suggest? Or is the government campaign against menthol simply another step on the road to the complete abolition of cigarettes?

Having smoked cigarettes in the past, both menthols and “lights” as well as an occasional clove cigarette, this seems like an overblown issue. If anyone believes that clove cigarettes are gateway smokes, they obviously have never tried one; they’re usually harsh and less pleasant than regular cigarettes, despite the “candy” designation given them. The ban on the use of the label “light” is equally silly, as those who smoke them understand it to refer to flavor, not carcinogenic capacity.

Does the FDA even belong in this equation? Shouldn’t this be handled by the Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco, and Firearms? No one thinks that cigarettes or other tobacco products are either “food” or “drugs” in the sense that most people understand them. BATF already has jurisdiction in this area. If the FDA takes over that jurisdiction, then how can an agency that certifies safety in products keep cigarettes legal at all? If they do, how does the FDA reject medical treatments that are merely ineffective while allowing hundreds of billions of cigarettes to be sold every year?

Once again, we have the federal government acting as nanny rather than allowing adults to make their own decisions. No one forces people to use tobacco products, after all, and we have literally spent decades educating people about the dangers. At the same time, of course, the government has grabbed tobacco revenue in ever-growing amounts in order to fund its own priorities. Who are the real hypocrites in this equation?

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