Manager Dave Hammerly (left) and owner John Anderson (right) of W. Curtis Draper Tobacconist chat at the downtown Washington store. (Diane Rusignola/MNS)
WASHINGTON — Last week’s Food and Drug Administration ban on flavors in cigarettes has smokers and tobacco industry workers alike fearing that menthols might be next.
“Menthol is a very large segment of the cigarette business,” said John Anderson, owner of W. Curtis Draper Tobacconist in downtown Washington. “More so than cherry cigarettes or the chocolate cigarettes or the clove cigarettes, which were all banned.”
While menthols technically are flavor additives and may be made from mint oils, the FDA’s new flavor ban, enacted to deter young people from smoking, does not limit them in cigarettes. Anderson, who has been involved in tobacco industry legislation through trade association International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers, said he isn’t sure what to expect from the FDA regarding menthols.
“Nothing would cease to surprise me at this point,” he said. “I have a manufacturer of cigarettes that called [menthol] ‘mint.’ They had to pull them off the shelves and repackage them as menthol.”
FDA spokeswoman Kathleen Quinn said the FDA will look deeper into the effects of menthol as an additive.
“The [new] law specifically calls for menthol to be studied by our Tobacco Scientific Products Advisory Committee and to take a look at the science surrounding menthol health effects and use,” she said. “Based on the input and recommendations of this committee, FDA may take further action.”
L. Wayne Rogers, who works in the legal industry in Washington, has been smoking for 41 years, starting with menthols but switching to regular cigarettes. He said the flavor ban is an infringement of people’s rights.
“I think it’s up to the parents to teach their kids how smoking is bad,” Rogers said. “When a kid [turns] 21, they have the right to choose what they want to do.”
According to studies cited by the FDA, 17-year-old smokers are three times as likely to use flavored cigarettes as smokers over 25. With smoking the leading cause of preventable death in the US and claiming more than 400,000 lives each year, the FDA says preventing children and adolescents from beginning the habit is important.
Store owner Anderson had to remove clove cigarettes from his shelves when the FDA flavor ban went into effect last week. (Diane Rusignola/MNS)
But Rogers said he thinks that young people get into smoking more through peer pressure and bar environments than gateways like flavored cigarettes.
Quinn said the flavor ban was intended to prevent young people from smoking, but health benefits for people of all ages is important to the FDA.
“While [older smokers are] not the primary audience, any impact the flavor ban has on reducing smoking among young and old is beneficial to health,” she said.
Although the flavor ban may be well-intentioned both to prevent youth addiction and to promote general health, Anderson wondered if the regulation is fair to the tobacco industry or consumers.
“I won’t sell anything to anyone under 18,” Anderson said. “It’s my job to keep that element out. So why should something that’s for adults only be regulated anyway?”
Although Anderson’s business focuses on cigars, pipes and smoking accessories, he said the ban on cloves as a flavor additive did hurt him.
“I did sell a lot of clove cigarettes, especially since they were illegal in Maryland,” Anderson said. “We did lose that portion of our business.”
But Anderson said his biggest concern is not the flavor ban, but the regulation of tobacco in general.
“I like the opportunity to meet with members [of Congress] and to be given the chance to have our peace heard, but oftentimes it feels like it’s falling on deaf ears,” he said. “As tobacconists, we’re almost persona non grata.”