The Food and Drug Administration’s announced proposal for a nationwide ban on menthol cigarettes is a long-overdue and much-needed development that will prevent countless young people from starting down the road to nicotine addiction and begin to reverse our nation’s significant racial health disparities. Menthol only serves to make smoking and other forms of nicotine use more palatable, accelerate nicotine addiction, and impede quitting. It’s the flavor most preferred by youth and disproportionately used by Black Americans, and both these groups have been intentionally targeted for decades by the tobacco industry through aggressive marketing of mentholated products. Partnership to End Addiction along with many other groups have been calling for this ban for years and are so gratified to see it finally happening.
-Linda Richter, Ph.D., Vice President of Prevention Research and Analysis, Partnership to End Addiction