FDA on Track to Announce Ban on Menthol Cigarettes & All Flavored Cigars by Spring

SILVER SPRING, Md. — The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to reveal its plans for menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars in a few short months.

According to a post by Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, the agency is on track to advance two proposed tobacco product standards by the spring. One product standard will prohibit menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes and the other will prohibit all characterizing flavors, including menthol, in cigars.

The projected timeframe will mark one year after the FDA announced it was putting the product standards on its agenda.

"These actions are an important opportunity to achieve significant, meaningful public health gains and advance health equity. For far too long, specific populations have been targeted and disproportionately impacted by tobacco use, especially when it comes to characterizing flavors that entice them to start and keep smoking," Zeller said on Jan. 27.

Menthol in cigarettes and flavors in cigars "facilitate initiation and progression" to regular smoking of both tobacco products, he added.

Congress gave the FDA the authority to establish product standards as part of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009. A product standard is a rule that sets requirements for a tobacco product. In this case, the product standards being proposed would prohibit menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes and all characterizing flavors in cigars, Zeller explained.

The FDA will accept public comments on the proposed public standards after revealing them this spring.  After reviewing and considering comments, the agency could then proceed to issue final product standards, which would become enforceable once in effect.

If implemented, enforcement of any prohibition on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars would only address manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, importers and retailers, according to Zeller.

Industry's Take on Proposed Bans

The backbar is a key category in the convenience channel. According to NACS State of the Industry data for 2020, cigarettes contributed 27.79 percent of in-store sales and other tobacco products accounted for 6.9 percent of in-store sales.

NACS and other industry groups argue that banning menthol tobacco products will push them into the black market.

"Menthol makes up more than 37 percent of the tobacco market," said Lyle Beckwith, NACS senior vice president of government relations. "That demand will not go away due to a ban. NACS is on record opposing menthol bans as we believe illicit vendors will quickly source and begin selling foreign and counterfeit menthol cigarettes. Illicit vendors do not verify age, do not collect and remit taxes, and they sell other illegal products beyond just menthol cigarettes."