With their enticing cool and minty flavor, menthol cigarettes have emerged as one of the most controversial products made by the tobacco industry. Kids are particularly drawn to them, with nearly 45 percent of smokers aged 12 to 17 using menthol cigarettes, according to a 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Most black teenaged smokers — and 82.7 percent of black adult smokers — favor menthols, the same survey found.

“The manufacturers would have you believe there is not a scintilla of evidence that menthol is no more dangerous than other cigarettes to the individual smoker, but we do not agree,” said Ellen Vargyas, general counsel for the American Legacy Foundation, a smoking prevention and cessation organization in Washington, D.C., founded with funding from the landmark Master Settlement Agreement between the tobacco industry and state governments. “Over 80 percent of African-American smokers smoke menthol, and African-America smokers have the highest rates of lung cancer. We also know African-Americans with lung cancer are more likely to die from lung cancer.”

In addition, the popularity of menthols among younger, newer smokers suggests that maybe the minty taste does encourage people to start, perhaps by masking the harsh taste of regular cigarettes, she added.

“We know the younger you are and the newer the smoker you are, the more likely you are to smoke menthol,” said Vargyas. “There is a very strong correlation between being a teenaged smoker and menthol cigarettes.”

That’s no coincidence, say smoking opponents: The tobacco industry has long targeted youth and minorities for menthol cigarette marketing, even manipulating menthol content in different brands in an effort to recruit new smokers among youth, according to the National Cancer Institute and the Harvard School of Public Health.

The debate over how menthols should be regulated lit up again last month, during the second round of hearings held by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee.

The advisory committee was established by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama in June 2009. The legislation gave the FDA unprecedented power to restrict the marketing of tobacco products.

While the law bans cigarette makers from adding candy or fruit-like flavors such as clove, cinnamon, vanilla, cocoa or strawberry to cigarettes, legislators hedged when it came to menthols, the most popular flavoring by far.

Although menthol was not banned from cigarettes, the law stressed that nothing prevented it from regulating menthol as well. In fact, the act required the FDA advisory committee to consider menthol cigarettes impact on public health — including its use among children and minorities– as its first order of business.

During the first round of hearings in March, the advisory committee sought answers about the addictiveness of menthol cigarettes, whether they are more harmful than regular cigarettes and whether the flavor encourages kids in particular to take up smoking.

Anti-smoking advocates say there is no evidence that menthols — which account for an estimated 33.9 percent of the U.S. cigarette market — are less deadly than any other cigarette. Research from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, in fact, suggests that they are more addictive, making it harder for smokers to quit, particularly blacks and Latinos.

During the hearings, tobacco industry representatives defended their products, saying menthols are no more harmful than other cigarettes and should not be singled out for a ban.

“We don’t think there is any evidence or even any suggestion that youth would choose not to smoke if menthol products weren’t available,” said Bill True, senior vice president of research and development for Lorillard Tobacco Co., the makers of Newport’s. “Kids don’t smoke because there are menthol cigarettes. Kids smoke for a variety of reasons which are probably quite complex.”

“Cigarettes do pose significant dangers to an individual’s health,” True added. “In dealing with regulating the product, we believe the FDA should be looking at those things that are the most significant.”

On that point, anti-smoking advocates agree. Cigarettes are by their very nature a deadly product, and legislation to sharply regulate their manufacture, sale and marketing can’t come a moment too soon, said Vargyas.

Mitch Zeller, vice president for policy and strategic communications at Pinney Associates in Washington, D.C. and the director of the FDA’s Office of Tobacco Programs during the Clinton Administration, noted that there were some limitations to the family smoking prevention laws reach. While the FDA has far more power over the industry than before, it cannot ban all cigarettes outright, nor can it force cigarette companies to reduce nicotine levels to zero, he said.

However, he said, the legislation requires tobacco companies to disclose comprehensive information about the contents and manufacturing process for tobacco products. The tobacco companies, he added, have been less than forthcoming with their data about the marketing and manufacture of menthols.

“The industry presentation on the issues that matter the most — those related to marketing that influences kids and any issue related to the initiation of smoking — was non-responsive,” Zeller said. “The advisory committee is in need of more information to do its job.”

The FDA advisory committee has nine members and includes physicians, scientists and public health experts; the tobacco industry is represented by three non-voting members. The committee has until March 2011 to report its menthol findings to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.

For about one-third of smokers, menthol makes a cigarette taste better — but it doesn’t make it harder to quit and doesn’t appear to entice teens to smoke, tobacco companies told a key federal panel yesterday. And they’ve found no evidence that menthol cigarettes are more toxic than regular smokes, the companies told the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee.

The panel, meeting yesterday in Gaithersburg, Md., is supposed to recommend how menthol cigarettes are regulated by next year — including whether they should be banned.

For the industry, billions of dollars of sales a year are at stake.

Menthol cigarette sales are declining, though R.J. Reynolds marketing operations director Monica J. Graves said there has been a slight recent rise in the percentage of smokers choosing menthol brands.

“This dynamic is not explained by marketing or by the amount of menthol in the product,” she said, adding that sales and price data show tobacco companies offer fewer promotions for menthol cigarettes.

“The menthol in Lorillard brands is simply designed to complement tobacco taste. Assertions Lorillard is trying to generate a physiological effect are simply not correct,” William R. True, senior vice president for research and development at Lorillard Tobacco Co., the top seller of menthol cigarettes.

There aren’t inadvertent biological effects, either, said Jane Lewis, senior vice president at Henrico County-based Altria Client Services, a sister company of the nation’s top cigarette-maker, Philip Morris USA.

“Menthol added to cigarettes does not increase risks of smoking. Menthol does not increase cigarette dependence. It does not affect cessation,” she said.

Altria anchored much of its case on an internal one-year study of 3,585 adult smokers, including 1,104 menthol smokers. In addition, the study looked at 1,077 non-smokers.

That study, one of the largest ever of people smoking naturally as opposed to the often-forced or paced smoking in laboratory studies, found:

•no sign that menthol smokers ingested more smoke;

•menthol smokers tended to smoke fewer cigarettes a day;

•no sign menthol smokers showed more biological changes that can foreshadow illness or cancer;

•no sign menthol affected how smokers metabolize nicotine, the addictive substance in cigarettes;

•no sign menthol affects how smokers metabolize nicotine-derived nitrosamine ketone, a potent carcinogen; and

•no sign menthol smokers were more likely to score higher on a standard test of nicotine dependence.

Altria’s Lewis said that supported findings in published epidemiological studies that menthol smokers are not more likely to suffer smoking-related diseases than other smokers.

In its submission, Altria said only one study has ever looked at whether menthol cigarettes particularly appeal to teenagers — and found no significant differences in teen’s sensory reactions to menthol as opposed to regular cigarettes. Other studies found no difference in when smokers of menthol and regular cigarettes started, the companies said.

Altria’s written submission also reported that nine national studies of smokers — ranging from 1,021 people who sought help quitting to 19,545 current and former smokers — found no difference in the percentages of menthol and non-menthol smokers who quit.

An informal group of tobacco control experts yesterday said menthol’s anesthetic effect tricks smokers into thinking their cigarettes are less harsh and therefore safer.

Article from: timesdispatch.com, July 16, 2010

Lots of smokers, lots of racial overtones, lots of interest. There’s so much interest in menthol cigarettes and their regulation, in fact, that the Food and Drug Administration’s newly created scientific advisory committee on tobacco products will be webcasting its inaugural meeting — focusing entirely on menthol in tobacco — on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 30 and 31.

The panel is expected to tackle the question of whether and how mentholation of cigarettes should be regulated by the FDA. You can check the meeting out here.

First, a few facts from a comprehensive collection of research on menthol and tobacco produced by the National Cancer Institute: Menthol cigarettes account for 26% of all cigarettes sold in the United States. Among adult African Americans who smoke, nearly 7 in 10 smoke menthols. Smoking menthols is biggest among black women and 18- to 30-year-olds. Latinos also appear to be drawn to the frosty taste and sensation of menthols: Among Latinos who smoke almost 3 in 10 smoke menthols, compared with about 22% of non-Latino whites.

Those facts mean that any regulation of menthol in cigarettes will weigh more heavily in minority communities — a sensitive subject for public policy. African Americans have the highest rates of lung cancer of any racial or ethnic group, and black men are far more likely than males of any other ethnic group to die of it.

Beyond those glaring demographic facts, there’s a lot of uncertainty about the role of menthol in cigarettes. Does menthol induce young people, and especially young African Americans, to take up the habit? Does it make it harder for those who smoke them to quit? Does the frosty flavoring prompt those who smoke menthols to drag harder or inhale more deeply? And are menthols any more cancer-causing than unmentholated cigarettes? These questions — to which research has provided contradictory and incomplete answers — will be discussed by the FDA’s advisory committee, the membership of which is listed here.

Menthol is derived from the oil of peppermint, and it’s also known as mint camphor. As luck would have it, it’s a compound that in used in embalming, and in masking the smell of decomposition. The first brand of menthol cigarettes, Salem, was introduced by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. on the American market in 1956, just as researchers outside the tobacco industry were beginning to collect evidence of cigarettes’ dangers.

By Melissa Healy, Latimesblogs

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Customers may already have noticed the change—although it has been subtle thus far. But they will starting March 1. That’s the official launch date of the latest line extension from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.’s Camel brand: menthol cigarettes containing a menthol burst capsule that enhances menthol flavor when squeezed.

The new cigarette supplanted Camel Menthol cigarettes in August 2009 and evolved from the “wonderful success” of Camel Crush (launched September 2008), according to Brian Stebbins, senior marketing director for Camel cigarettes. Crush also contains the menthol capsule, but squeezing it turns that cigarette from nonmenthol to menthol. “Whenever we launch something new, we try to find out who’s interacting with it, who likes it, who doesn’t like it and who has an idea of how to make it even better,” Stebbins told CSP Daily News.

“We identified that there’s a pretty large group of adult menthol smokers who are interested in the capsule technology, but they want to see us use it differently,” Stebbins said, adding that they want to use it to use it to make menthol cigarettes “even fresher and even cooler at the moment of their choosing, or on demand.”

The soft launch in August included “very minimal communication on packs and on the website for those who were interested.” Stebbins added, “And the idea there was to let those smokers who already choose Camel Menthol have an opportunity to experience the innovation first, let them experience the product first, let them let us know what they think and the response has been very positive.”

As for March 1, Stebbins said, “That is where we actually go out and try and tell the story to a broader audience about the innovation on Camel menthol.” The launch will mean a new look for the packaging, retail communications, retail merchandising and a “very solid” launch promotion program—including direct mail, emails and person-to-person engagements in bars, nightclubs and festivals.

Stebbins described the new packaging as having “a fresher, cooler color pallet that menthol smokers respond very nicely to” and said it will also “tell the story of the product within,” using the Camel mascot. Stebbins also said the name of Camel Menthol Lights will change to Camel Menthol Silver; Camel Menthol will keep the same name. He added, “We will still have a couple of menthol products that are in the market that will not have capsules in them, but they are not a primary marketing emphasis…. That really just kind of depends upon the business opportunity in those markets and retailer choice about what they carry.”

He said the product’s demographics are wide ranging. “Our testing indicates that the adult smokers who are interested span different age groups, they span different brands that they buy from today and it’s male/female. It’s a very broad opportunity, and I think that’s mostly because it’s a provocative innovation. We’re talking about a category, menthol cigarettes, where there’s a lot of sameness, and Camel cigarettes is the exact opposite of that.”

According to a Jan. 17, 1997 New York Times article, Reynolds briefly tested a menthol version of Camel in 1966, but never sold it nationally. Camel Menthols were nationally launched in 1997.

“I think the ‘new news’ here is menthol is growing considerably in the category, and to be frank, until we had introduced Camel Crush, Camel wasn’t getting its fair share of that growth,” Stebbins said.

Although menthol is “expressly permitted” under the recent flavored cigarette ban, there has been concern in the industry. David Howard, an R.J. Reynolds spokesperson, told CSP Daily News, “Obviously, as [U.S. Food & Drug Administration] regulations take effect, one of the things is that there will be a committee looking into menthol…. And certainly, whatever information is needed from us, we’re going to cooperate for any information that they need or assistance that we can provide in that study. But at this time, menthol is specifically not part of the flavored bans and permitted by FDA regulations…. And certainly, we believe it’s a viable product category, obviously; it’s a very large and growing category with adult smokers.”

According to the National Survey on Drug Use & Health Report, published by the Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration, on Nov. 19, 2009, among past-month smokers, the rate of smoking menthol cigarettes increased from 31% in 2004 to 33.9% in 2008. Past-month smoking of menthol cigarettes was more likely among those who were recent smoking initiates (i.e., began smoking in the past year) than among those who were longer-term smokers (i.e., initiated use more than a year ago) (44.6% vs. 31.8% respectively).

By Linda Abu-Shalback Zid, Cspnet.com
February 5, 2010

Nicotine is definitely addictive, but scientists have been debating for several decades the effect of menthol in hooking people on tobacco. Some researchers suspect that menthol allows smokers to take deeper drags or puffs on cigarettes, drawing in greater amounts of nicotine and its byproducts.

“It helps the poison go down smoother,” says Jonathan Foulds, the director of the Tobacco Dependence Program at the University of Dentistry and Medicine of New Jersey’s School of Public Health.

In a cessation program at his university, Foulds found that people who smoked menthol cigarettes seemed to have more difficulty quitting than those who smoked regular cigarettes.

Nearly 1,700 people were enrolled in the program. They signed up, Foulds says, because they wanted help quitting. Millions of Americans say they’ve tried to quit smoking, and some groups appear to have a harder time than others, such as low-income, less-educated African-Americans and Hispanics.

The current cost of smoking, particularly in the northeastern United States, would certainly be enough to make a poor person want to break the habit. In New Jersey, a pack of cigarettes costs $8; in Manhattan, a pack costs $11.

For many, those prices mean it’s time to quit or cut back. But Foulds says it’s not quite that simple when the body is addicted to a certain level of nicotine.

Over time, he says, “Your body tries to inhale more smoke per cigarette to get the usual dose of nicotine. With regular cigarettes, it becomes harsh because nicotine and the toxins in the smoke are harsh on your throat.”
Menthol smokers, it appears, don’t have the same problem. Those who smoke menthols say it creates a cooling, soothing sensation.
Menthol is a cooling agent, Foulds says, and that makes it easier to inhale more smoke per cigarette and perhaps get more nicotine.

Dr. Kolawole Okuyemi of the University of Minnesota has studied disparities in black and white smokers, and the effect of menthol cigarettes on biochemical markers.

A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that African-Americans who smoke menthol cigarettes inhale a higher volume of carbon monoxide compared to those who smoke non-menthol cigarettes, according to Okuyemi. They also take in more byproducts of nicotine that can be measured in the blood or the saliva.

“If you take a menthol smoker who smokes 10 cigarettes and a non-menthol smoker who smokes 10 cigarettes a day, the carbon monoxide, the nicotine and cotinine [a byproduct of nicotine] will be higher for the menthol smoker.” That suggests “there is something about menthol that makes it easier to smoke more intensely,” Okuyemi says.

One of the biggest indicators of a person’s addiction is how soon they light up after they get up in the morning, Okuyemi says. Studies show that menthol smokers light up sooner than regular smokers – as soon as five minutes after they get out of bed.

Among African-Americans who smoke, the vast majority smoke mentholated cigarettes, and many of these studies compared biochemical markers in black and white smokers. It may have more to do with the fact that African-Americans metabolize nicotine more slowly, says Okuyemi. That would mean that they are more likely to retain nicotine.

Andrew Hyland of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute isn’t entirely convinced that menthol aids addiction. Though not linked in any way to Lorillard, which manufactures menthol cigarettes, Hyland’s study was cited by one of the company’s representatives as evidence that menthol cigarettes are no more addictive than others.

Hyland followed 13,000 smokers for five years. He found that low-income and less-educated people had a harder time quitting, but he found no difference between whites and blacks, or menthol and regular cigarette smokers. He agrees that menthol’s role in smoking is not entirely neutral.

“If you look at how deeply people inhale or the puff volumes — how much smoke they bring into their lungs — some studies show that it is easier [to smoke menthol], but other studies show it’s not,” says Hyland. “To me, that means it is probably not a huge deal, especially relative to the thing that gets people hooked. The menthol is a tool, a marketing tool. Once they are hooked on the product, with the nicotine, that’s when they’re in trouble.”

Historical documents show that the industry did in fact target African-Americans in the late 1950s. At that time, African-Americans were no more likely to smoke menthol than white Americans. Lorillard maintains that a fourth of white Americans who smoke today smoke menthol cigarettes. About 75 percent of African-American smokers use menthol cigarettes now, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

They start later in life and quit later, like 56-year-old Larry Harrison, who gave up cigarettes after 38 years.

“Fourteen days clean,” he says. For those who don’t think that sounds like a very long time, he says, “When you’ve been smoking 38 years, one day is a long time without a cigarette.”

By Brenda Wilson, NPR
January 25, 2010

Menthol cigarettes appear to be more addictive for black and Hispanic smokers than regular cigarettes, a U.S. study has found.Researchers from the School of Public Health at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) analyzed data on 7,815 current and former smokers who’d reported at least one attempt to quit. The information came from the 2005 National Health Interview Survey.

Among adults who smoked menthol cigarettes, just 44 percent of blacks and 48 percent of Hispanics were able to kick the habit. But blacks and Hispanics who smoked regular cigarettes had higher quit rates — 62 percent and 61 percent, respectively. Those rates were similar to quit rates for white adults.

The data also showed that non-whites tended to smoke fewer cigarettes a day and were about three times more likely than whites to smoke menthol cigarettes, the study authors noted.

“Historically, tobacco companies have targeted minority populations when marketing menthol cigarettes,” study co-author Cristine Delnevo, director of the Center for Tobacco Surveillance and Evaluation Research at UMDNJ, said in a university news release.

“Although whites and non-whites have similar smoking prevalence rates, the fact that non-whites are more likely to smoke menthols, and those who smoke menthols are less likely to quit, could explain why minority populations continue to suffer disproportionately from tobacco-caused disease and death,” she said.

Study author Daniel Gundersen said in the news release that “with the substantial number of smokers smoking menthol cigarettes, particularly among minorities, this is serious cause for concern.”

The findings are published in the December issue of Preventive Medicine.

More information

For information on quitting smoking, go to smokefree.gov.
SOURCE: University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, news release, Dec. 3, 2009
Dec. 10, 2009

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Lorillard Tobacco Co. issued a statement with regard to the report from the National Survey on Drug Use & Health (NSDUH) about the use of menthol cigarettes, which was released last week by the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

“While we have not had the opportunity to review this report in depth, the most comprehensive government-sponsored studies show that populations who use menthol have lower smoking rates across all age groups.

“Importantly, this report appears to ignore the chief finding of the survey—that menthol use among underage smokers has leveled off in the last year. According to current data, adult smoking rates continue to decline, while youth rates are at historic lows and have been in decline for more than a decade.

“The current weight of scientific evidence does not support the conclusion that menthol cigarettes confer a greater health risk than non-menthol.

“Lorillard looks forward to cooperating with the FDA as it makes an objective science-based assessment in its review of menthol.”

According to the SAMHSA study, menthol cigarette use is higher among persons who started smoking in the past year (44.6%) than among longer-term smokers (31.8%). In addition, among persons who smoked in the past month, the percentage using menthol cigarettes increased from 31% in 2004 to 33.9% in 2008. This increase was most pronounced among adolescent smokers aged 12 to 17 (up from 43.5% to 47.7%), and young adult smokers aged 18 to 25 (up from 34.1% to 40.8%).

Menthol is an additive used in cigarettes that masks the harshness of cigarette smoke by giving the smoker the sensation of coolness in the mouth, pharynx and lungs, said SAMHSA. By masking the harshness, menthol can make it easier for young people to start smoking, it said. Some recent research indicates that menthol cigarettes may be more difficult to quit than other types of cigarettes, it added.

Menthol is the only cigarette flavoring still permitted under the Family Smoking Prevention & Tobacco Control Act, but the law calls for research on the public health effects of its continued use in cigarettes.

The study shows that the levels of menthol cigarette use among black smokers (82.6%) remains much higher than white smokers (23.8%), hispanic smokers (32.3%) and smokers from other racial and ethnic groups. Among blacks, long-term smokers were more likely to use menthol cigarettes than were those who took up smoking in the past year, which is the opposite of the pattern found among white and Hhspanic smokers.

There was also a noticeable rise in the percentage using menthol cigarettes among male current smokers, it said, from 2004 to 2008 (26.9% to 30.8%).

Use of Menthol Cigarettes is based on 2004 – 2008 data drawn from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which obtained responses from 340,476 persons aged 12 or older.
Click here to view the full report.

Lorillard, based in Greensboro, N.C., is the third largest manufacturer of cigarettes in the United States. Newport, Lorillard’s flagship brand, is a menthol-flavored premium cigarette brand and the top-selling menthol and second largest-selling cigarette in the United States. In addition to Newport, the Lorillard product line has five additional brand families marketed under the Kent, True, Maverick, Old Gold and Max brand names. These six brands include 44 different product offerings which vary in price, taste, flavor, length and packaging.

WASHINGTON – More adolescents and young adults are smoking menthol cigarettes, according to a government report, a potentially troubling sign when overall smoking rates have dropped and menthol is the only flavoring not banned under sweeping tobacco laws passed earlier this year.

Menthol cigarettes make up about a quarter of the $70 billion market for cigarettes. Big producers of menthol cigarettes include Newport maker Lorillard Inc. (LO) and Kool manufacturer Reynolds American Inc (RAI). Menthol is an additive that scientists say may mask the harshness of tobacco and in turn lure people to start smoking, concerns the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will grapple with over the next year as it considers whether to ban the flavoring.

In 2008, the rate of smokers 12 to 17 years old using menthol cigarettes rose to 48% from 44% in 2004, according to a report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA. Among 18 to 25 year olds, the rate jumped to 41% in 2008 from 34% in 2004. The report doesn’t break down the figures by number of users, but about 4.2 billion menthol cigarette packs are sold annually, according to government statistics.

Overall smoking rates in the U.S. declined in 2008 compared to 2004, so health officials are concerned menthol encourages people to smoke.

“The apparent allure that menthol cigarettes have among younger, newer smokers is particularly troubling as menthol cigarettes may tempt more people to take up this dangerous deadly habit,” acting SAMHSA director Eric Broderick said in a statement.

Lorillard spokesman Michael W. Robinson said Wednesday that evidence shows smokers of menthol and non-menthol cigarettes have the same rate of success in quitting smoking and “claims that menthol perpetuates smoking are not supported by the facts.”

The company saw a breakout of some of the report’s results but wasn’t able to see the full report because it wasn’t available for viewing until Thursday.

President Barack Obama in June signed a law giving the FDA authority to severely restrict tobacco advertising and ban certain candy flavorings. Menthol wasn’t banned for a host of reasons, according to experts, but mostly amid concerns that it would scuttle the overall legislation and could create a black market for the products.

The Congressional Black Caucus demanded that the bill place restrictions on menthol cigarettes because the products are disproportionately used among African American smokers. About 80% of all African American smokers use menthol cigarettes compared with about 20% among whites. The caucus also demanded that the FDA review, within a year, the safety of menthol and whether it should be banned. The FDA is in the process of setting up an advisory panel to study the issue.

Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said this study adds “to the evidence that menthol plays a role in smoking initiation among kids.”

He said it sets off “alarm bells” because most cigarette smokers start as teenagers. “If menthol is increasing the number of kids who start, it’s increasing the number of people who will eventually die from tobacco.”

The SAMHSA study was based on a survey that asked more than 340,000 people 12 and older whether they smoked in the last month and what they smoked.

-By Jared A. Favole, Dow Jones Newswires; 202.862.9207; jared.favole@dowjones.com

Cigarette maker Lorillard Inc.’s largest competitors — Altria Group Inc. and Reynolds American Inc. — are ramping up efforts to grab some of the menthol market from Lorillard’s leading Newport brand.

Altria, parent company of the nation’s largest cigarette maker, Philip Morris USA, offers menthol versions of its market-leading Marlboro brand, including a new extension called Marlboro Blend 54. It also has a new L&M Bold product. Reynolds hopes to strengthen Camel’s position in the growing category with products such as Camel Crush, which gives smokers the option of giving each cigarette menthol flavor by crushing a capsule in the filter.

The moves come as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee plans to consider claims that products like menthol cigarettes have greater public health impacts, including among children and specific racial and ethnic groups.

In a conference call with analysts Monday regarding his company’s third-quarter earnings, Lorillard CEO Martin Orlowsky downplayed the importance of growing competition in the menthol segment.

QUESTION: Have products from Altria and Reynolds like Marlboro Blend 54 and Camel Crush made any real difference to the menthol category as a whole?

RESPONSE: No, and I will say that I don’t think Camel Crush is a menthol product to begin with. So I wouldn’t attribute any impact or effect from the Camel side. 54, well, obviously is a pure menthol product. As I said earlier, I don’t think that it had an appreciable impact in the marketplace.

WASHINGTON, – A U.S. health advocate argued the case for banning menthol tobacco products at a meeting of some 150 public health advocates in Washington Monday.

Cheryl G. Healton, head of the American Legacy Foundation, told 150 scientists and public health advocates the success of menthol cigarettes is no accident.

Many hundreds of tobacco industry documents conclusively establish that the tobacco industry has for decades systematically developed and marketed menthol products to attract “starter” and youth smokers, Healton said.

“Congress did ban a wide array of other flavors including strawberry, grape, orange, clove, cinnamon, pineapple, vanilla, coconut, licorice, cocoa, chocolate, cherry and coffee, based on the common sense logic that flavored cigarettes make smoking more attractive to kids,” Healton told the meeting.

However, menthol flavors are still permitted, Healton pointed out. Forty-seven percent of Hispanic smokers in high school usually smoke menthol cigarettes, while 76 percent of African-American smokers, 62 percent of Asian-American smokers and 29 percent of white smokers prefer menthol cigarettes.

Conference sponsors and supporters included the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the American Legacy Foundation, the American Lung Association, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has banned the sale of all cigarettes containing candy, fruit and other flavorings except menthol as of Sept. 22, 2009.

This ban, authorized by the new Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, is part of a national effort by the FDA to reduce smoking in America. The ban on flavored cigarettes is aimed at reducing the number of children who start smoking and become addicted to tobacco products. In fact:

In 2004, 22.8 percent of 17- year-old smokers reported using flavored cigarettes over the past month, as compared to 6.7 percent of smokers over the age of 25.

A poll conducted in March 2008 found that one in five young people between the ages of 12 and 17 had seen flavored tobacco products or ads, while only one in 10 adults reported having seen them.

According to one study of youth smokers between the ages of 13 and 18, 52 percent of smokers who had heard of flavored cigarettes reported interest in trying them, and nearly 60 percent thought that flavored cigarettes would taste better than regular cigarettes.

The statistics, along with the fact the about 90 percent of smokers begin smoking as teenagers, certainly seem to support claims that candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes are just another attempt by the tobacco industry to recruit “replacement smokers,” replacing the number of people who quit smoking or die from smoking-related diseases each year with new, young smokers.

The new ban on flavored cigarettes is certainly a step in the right direction; however, for all the good intentions of the FDA, this ban stops short of eliminating the No.1 most prevalent cigarette flavoring in use today: menthol.

Research at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School has shown that menthol cigarette smokers take in more nicotine and carbon monoxide per cigarette than regular cigarette smokers, and a recent study at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey has shown that menthol smokers find it harder to quit, despite smoking fewer cigarettes per day.

Although I fully support the ban on flavored cigarettes, it is obvious to me that the tobacco industry still has enough influence to continue selling the cigarettes that are the real money makers for them, and that probably have the most influence on our nation’s teenagers, menthol.

Hopefully, the ban on menthol cigarettes will be considered in the near future.

The noble intention of the most recent tobacco regulation is to stop the targeting of youth with the sweet flavors they love in solid form. The bill, signed by President Obama in June and in effect since last week, smartly recognizes the specific allure of flavored cigarettes; the hardbitten service employee likely doesn’t go for chocolate smokes, which are probably a more effective pitch than Joe Camel ever was.
Those involved might paint this as a result of Congress building bridges with a subsidiary of the responsible Altria Group, a large corporation, and Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a nonprofit, to bring us the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

Well doesn’t that just sound precious.

Actually, the epitome of Big Tobacco slithered into the policy process in order to carve their own advantage into the bill.

You see, “Altria Group” was “Philip Morris Companies, Inc.,” until it rebranded in 2003. The new name (Latin for “high”) makes it sound like the kind of light, clean corporate entity that would “offer innovative solutions” or other such buzzwords — not the kind that makes the lion’s share of its profit peddling flavored cancer.
Under this moniker, Slate magazine and the New York Times report, it played a heavy role in the shaping of this regulation.

Want to know how you can tell? The legislation curiously omits a certain flavor from what would otherwise be a comprehensive ban. Strangely, the flavor left out is by far the most popular and has been found to be more addictive and potentially more harmful.

That would be menthol cigarettes, of which Philip Morris is a huge manufacturer. (One sees why rival R.J. Reynolds has dubbed the bill the “Marlboro Monopoly Act.” Slate’s Paul Smalera wrote an insightful piece on the unbalanced nature of the ban which goes into far more detail than I can here.)
Philip Morris’ policymaking role here wasn’t a one-off thing; it conforms to a long-term strategy of getting involved to ensure a measure of protection.

The Slate article mentions “Project Sunrise,” an initiative with the goal of working with, rather than against, legislators and the “antis” such as Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. In this way, they hoped to dilute legislation before they acquiesce to it, stomping out any chance of hard-hitting reform.
The company’s newest offering, Marlboro Blend No. 54 (minty Marlboro 27s introduced a week before the ban was signed) sits on shelves at this very moment as proof that Philip Morris has very much succeeded in that regard.

Look up “Sunrise.” The University of California, San Francisco’s Legacy Tobacco Documents Library hosts relevant documents online. One in particular, an outline of “Sunrise” written for a board meeting, is unnerving in its cold, manipulative calculations. It constructs multiple scenarios named in the creepy, operational style of classified government programs: “Bladerunner,” “New Game,” “Avalanche.” Some provide eerily prescient predictions of current American society.

All go well beyond the scope of simple advertising or market research.
Yet what would otherwise be sinister but abstract corporate schemes become reality when Congress, all-too-eager to appear responsive and all-too-ready to sell out, takes the bait as they did this time. Inaction is one thing, but doing little and marketing it as a lot is quite another.

There’s another loophole. Smokers of clove cigarettes might chafe at the prohibition on their delicious vice, but it’s nothing to worry about. The legal wording bans flavored “cigarettes,” so manufacturer Djarum now wraps its products in tobacco leaves and markets them as flavored cigars. And again, menthols — favored 75 percent among African Americans, yet the Congressional Black Caucus approved the bill —are as available as ever and now dominate the arena of accessible flavor.

Think about it. Who won here? Who lost? I’d say that Nick Naylor himself, the jive-talking antihero of “Thank You For Smoking,” couldn’t have asked for more.

Whitten Maher is a senior political science and media arts & design major and design editor at The Breeze.

Contact Whitten Maher at mahercw@jmu.edu