What’s the Matter with Menthols?: The Latest from the War on Cigarettes
by Reason TVRecently 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?
Approximately 4 minutes. Produced by Meredith Bragg and Michael C. Moynihan.
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101 Comments
I've never understood why anyone would want to ruin the flavor of good tobacco by dousing it in chocolate or menthol flavored chemicals. But, to each their own.
Even though no one in my house smokes, I don't agree that the government should go around and tell people that they can't smoke. Zero still smokes and so does Boehner.
I can't abide the smell of cigarettes, and although I do indulge in a cigar once or twice a year, I do not consider myself a smoker. Certainly, I have no addiction to nicotine.
That said, maybe I'll just go out and get myself a pipe, some tobacco, and give it a few grinds of fresh clove, just so I can see what my "betters" think I should be missing.
Leave my smokes alone !,
funny when I was in VN fighting to preserve the rights of aholes like obama smokes came in the K-rations
Better is they mask the stinking smell of the pot obama likes to sell and is now making legal or the rot smell coming out of mouths of those who drink booze.
Can they rid the stench of the crap coming out of those who live in the whitehouse ?
"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."
Ever expanding government and regulation. Menthol Subcommittee? Really?
What's next a Committee on dog flatulence?
I wonder, if we cut the federal budget by 75% would that be enough.
Smoking is not good for you. Government is worse for you than smoking.
There ya go! Amen!
The government is killing us with safety.
Smokers better get their own "NRA" organization to protect their rights, or smoking will be outlawed altogether (unless it is medical pot of course).
To outlaw smoking is to provide a gateway law. It will lead to bans on anything the government deems unhealthy.
Maybe we'll have a Menthol Czar.
Agreed
Just another insignificent piece of control to add to government.
The only thing I see that's unhealthy is the obesity of government itself.
Pipes are where it's at. I use a pipe on occasion, and the smell and flavor of pipe tobacco beats cigarettes any day.
Liberals do not want kids to smoke cigarettes, but they do want kids to smoke pot…… what's up with that?
Don't worry. The Kennedy's will be on hand to smuggle candy-flavored cigs into the US, once tobacco prohibition is enacted, just like they did for alcohol during the other prohibition.
Ah, to personally profit from government encroachment on the lives of the unwashed. It's the dimocrat way!
Probably not.
I'm on day 28…. God i need a cigarette. This nicotine gum works though. 50$ a carton!!!???… Naw I'm done.
Just another way for big brother or our nanny to encroach upon our dwindling freedoms.
I love this one…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFhhwVrEPS8
Here is the Doc wondering 'how do they live so long?' as he passes out smokes.
And yes, I'm a smoker.
as Boehner says, there isnt a smoker who doesn't know that smoking is harmful for people.
is there anyone out there who doesnt know that eating fast food or processed food is bad for you? Will the dictators ban those too?
When Barney Frank loses 50 lbs of disgusting fat, then we'll talk about banning things that are harmful for people.
Nazi's
A good start!
I don't smoke (only cigars infrequently), but I see this as just another nibble on the ol' Freedom Fence! Either smoking is legal, or it's not. If it's legal, then they should be able to advertise and do what ever any other legal business does! Gov is not smart enough to dictate what we do/don't do to endanger our lives.
Motorcycles are DANGEROUS!
Skydiving is DANGEROUS!
Alcohol is DANGEROUS!
Gasoline is a carcinogen!
30 yr old cars without seatbelts are DANGEROUS!
STOP IT! It's NOT the Fed's job to govern safety! It's there job to protect the borders!!! Feds can't even uphold existing constitutional laws…
Its so FRUSTRATING being a libertarian sometimes!
I'm sure they'll find something else to tax….possibly the air we breath.
Whats next? The Menthol Czar !
Not so much dog flatulence but cattle and human. You and the cattle will be required to wear both a CO2, CH4, and O2 meter to determine the tax to pay whenever one breaths, exhales, or passes gas. Our nanny government wants to get us both coming and going.
Pretty soon it will be mandated that all children must be wrapped in bubble wrap before they are dropped off for 2nd grade class.
I quit smoking twenty years ago, it was very hard to do. Quitting government will be a lot easier, cause I never started. “Smoke’em if you got’em boys and girls, cause the next couple months are gonna be quite the ride.”
You are not wrong.
It's the do as I say not as I do government. They're the government. We're the peons.
as anybody who has ever served in the military will tell you- get rid of menthols and you will hack off a LOT of the 'brothers' out there…
i think it is appaling that a small bar owner does not bring a lawsuit over smoking. if owned a bar, and i wanted it open to smokers, it is my business, why is it the governments. perhaps they should require a sign be placed outside all businesses, that states if they are, or are not smoking establishments. i can see a government passing a law banning smoking in a government building, but how did we ever let them get away with making private businesses ban smoking. if you do not like smoke, stay away from those businesses that allow smoking.
The sad part is that its not the governments job to keep us safe… its their job to keep the borders safe, but they don't want to do that job.
Do not give them ideas!
Smoking is healthier than fascism.
Everybody smoked when I was growing up
They smoked at home
They smoked at school
They smoked in restaurants
They smoked in bars
They smoked in offices
They smoked in their cars.
They smoked in stores
They smoked in the street
They smoked in the park
They smoked everywhere
They smoked with us kids around – all the time.
My question is this….If second hand smoke is so deadly, shouldn't we all be dead?
Hmmm. Funny how prohibition of alcohol required a Constitutional amendment a hundred years ago. Guess they don't bother with pesky little requirements like that anymore.
Thank you for your service.
Exactly! They entire reason that smoking was first considered to be harmful is that in a household with smokers and non-smokers, only the smokers were getting cancer and emphysema.
Look luv, the company I work for just announced a new policy…No smoking anywhere on company property.
It's their right I guess. It is their property.
I'm going to have a hard time not smoking at work. (I'm there alone usually so I can do what I want. But I still try to follow the rules they set out).
So I look at it like this.
The 1st thing the Democrats did after Barry was elected was jack up the tax on smokes…
Well this is our chance. Lets quit smoking. Lets quit giving $3.00 a pack to fund shit we deplore.
Lets quit paying 5-10 bucks a pack to be in bad shape.
If you are on day 28 you are 27 days ahead of me.
That is exactly what Cap-n-Tax does.
If your going to quit… Definitely try the gum. Its really does take the edge off.
I smoked about 30 non-filtered cigs a day for 25 years… the only way this ole boy would be able to do it cold turkey would be in a jail cell with padded walls. FYI…
See the next post… that's where…
I'm screwed. I have a 92lb Goberian dog who farts more often than Pelosi gets facelifts.
The "second hand smoke" thing is pure junk science, in case you didn't know.
======================
They’re even more laughable given that the precedent cited by the agency for relying on such weak statistical correlations is the EPA’s own 1993 report claiming to link secondhand smoke with lung cancer — a study that was eviscerated and vacated by a federal court in 1998 because the EPA’s science was so poor and contrived in nature.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,206002,00.htm...
obamasoros smokes Kools will he have to switch????
By the way, Congressmen are still allowed to smoke in the Congressional building — its just us little people — you know, us little people THAT OWN THE BUILDING, that are not allowed to smoke in it.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/jul/24/2...
The FDA should do some double-blind, placebo controlled studies on some of the natural alternative substances like Carnosine eye drops, an anti-oxidant used for cataracts, or on CoQ10 that could help people!
There are thousands of natural substances that don't get studies, that people grab, otc. Who is going to test them for safety and efficacy? The American public that wants better health! Not only prescription substances should be studied. Enlarge and validate America's health choices!
I don't know if it's true, but I was always told that smoking menthols regularly is like breathing asbestos. I heard that inside your lungs, the mentholated smoke works on the tissue of the lungs like tiny shards of glass.
Anyone else ever heard that?
Democrats don't care about lost revenue, they spend money whether they have any or not. Democrats only care about power and showing YOU who's boss.
Very good point. Wish I would have thought of that.
they will not ban cigarettes, theres no way to replace the tax revenue they get from taxing cigarettes. this is just a way they can make themselves look good and pave the way for more tax hikes on cigarettes
Actually the only things that are totally safe, according to the government, are going to work and paying your taxes.
Alcohol isn't dangerous. It's only dangerous if you abuse it. (And motorcycling only harms you if you crash.)
Smoking in and of itself is harms your health no matter how you conduct the act.
Smoking doesn't provide any benefit, yet here we are saying, "I want to smoke to destroy my body just so I can have someone else pay for my health problems associated with smoking."
I smoked Menthols for a decade and quit over 15 years ago…Salem Ultra Lights 100s. I still can't eat mint candy of any kind. But no, I don't miss them. Why do you ask?
False. Not everyone who smokes suffers, gets cancer, etc… Some smokers show no ill effect. Some smokers only smoke infrequently and have minimal effect.
"I want to smoke to destroy my body just so I can have someone else pay for my health problems associated with smoking."… The same can be said for motorcycle riding, drinking (doesn't take much to be considered illegal and dangersous), skydiving, … YOU take risks everyday, just be waking up. YOU have no right to tell someone else what they can/cannot do with their lives/bodies.
The medical care problem is that instead of paying off medical bills, people go out and buy $40,000 cars, X-Boxes and what not. The problem is (most) people's lack of responsibility and priorities. Its too easy to declare bankruptcy.
You know exactly how they will make up for the lost revenue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7duPNQCp-w4
Agree! I remember when my oldest sister was in the hospital giving birth, new moms were able to smoke right in the hospital room! (I have to laugh thinking about this.) About 8 years later, hospitals had designated "smoking" areas. Now in 2010, many hospitals won't allow smoking on their premises. Many WILL NOT even hire you if you have nicotine in your system.
WE'VE COME A LONG WAY BABY!!! /sarc
Well we already have a carp czar. Crap czar? Carp czar? I'm confused.
Let's see where to begin. For starters (and perhaps most important) is a little thing called individual liberty. It is my choice to smoke, shoot, eat red meat (mmmm steak), or engage in any number of other activities that you and others may consider to unhealthy. Second, prohibition has been tried and it didn't really turn out well. Third, I can't seem to find anywhere in the Constitution where goobermint has the right to ban cigarettes.
Bottom line is this, if you don't like smokers, THEN DON'T GO AROUND THEM! Exercise a little personal responsibility and accountability.
There isn't a practical benefit to Cherry Coke either, and can probably be as detrimental to one's health in the long-term as any cigarette if drunken to excess. But no, we shouldn't ban it. Nor should we ban cigarettes.
Decrying the government pushing more regulations and then calling for a ban is like accusing the government of accruing too much power and then calling for it to establish a fascist dictatorship already.
There is not a person alive, young or old, who doesn't know that smoking is likely going to be deleterious to their health. We don't need Big Gov to tell us, cajole us and protect us. If people want to smoke, let them. If people don't, they don't have to.
I hate cigarettes. Disgusting, smelly cancer sticks…
Know what I hate more than cigarettes? Nanny-staters.
Strangely enough I would have much more respect for Obama if he just said "I'm a smoker, deal with it", instead of constantly saying he's quitting. I don't like cigarettes (cigars are special and only to be smoked after a big achievement), but I like anti-smoking demagogues even less. I don't like these ridiculous nanny state, power-mad bureaucrats and politicians constantly looking for new ways to save us from nonexistent dilemmas.
I would be proud to have a president one day who would tell the anti-smoking lobby to shove their self-righteous indignation up their ass, and then light up right there to prove a point.
I drink, smoke, ride a motorcycle, and have a big gasoline powered V-8 truck. Should I voluntarily report to the re-education camps or wait for them to come get me? Although,if I wait long enough, i may drunkenly crash my motorcycle into the truck while returning from a chemotherapy session. Question asked and answered.
For every cigarette that is made, a puppy gets kicked. That's what I heard, anyway.
Anyone who ever enjoyed a rum cigar should be loading his/her weapons right now…
My question was legit. My uncle told me when I started smoking that menthols cut your lungs up. I was only asking if anyone else had ever heard that. A simple "no" would've been just fine.
I'm not your enemy, buddy. You need to chill out.
My grandfather smoked and had a shot of vodka every morning until he died at the age of 92. My ex-mother-in-law never smoked or drank a day in her life and she died from lung cancer at the age of 72. Go figure. No second hand smoke either. Grew all her own veggies too.
I want these assholes to stay out of our lives. Period.
Two of the greatest mass murderers of the last 50 years are the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association. Both of them maintain a 100% zero tolerance policy on the use of what they call "tobacco products." Not just cigarettes, but cigars, pipe tobacco, dip, snuff, snus, and others. Therefore they treat them all the same and refuse to make any distinctions.
The problem is that the only "tobacco product" that has been proven to have significant health effects is cigarettes. (And has been pointed out, "How dangerous is something that takes 25 years or more to kill you?")
Still, they are bad for you, no doubt about it, and it's probably a good idea to quit if you can. And people get addicted to nicotine, which is the main reason they smoke (just as with coffee and caffeine). So people who try to quit run up against the fight against nicotine withdrawal. For decades the two organizations battled tooth and nail against nicotine replacement products, like the gum. When they sullenly agreed to support them, they demanded they be designed not as a replacement, but as a tool for weaning people off nicotine. But the question is, why? Despite 60 years of studies, no real problems have been found with the continued use of nicotine. Yes, it is poisonous at levels far higher than are generally used–but so are alcohol, caffeine, aspirin, and even water. "The dose makes the poison" is Toxicology 101.
So their insistence on the elimination of nicotine (which has nothing to do with the heart or lung problems they are supposedly dedicated to fighting) has led them to hide or deny several important facts, one of which is that other forms of smoking are nearly without risk. Cigar and pipe smokers smoke far, far less than cigarette smokers, and rarely inhale. Dip snuff only raises mouth cancer risks from 0.03% to 0.06%. And there are no studies showing that nasal snuff or Swedish snus have any meaningful health risks at all.
But first getting cigarette smokers off the habit of inhaling the smoke of burning plant material into their lungs 20 times a day, and onto a safe and cheap form of nicotine like snuff, reduces the severe health effects by 97% to 98%. The AHA and the ALA KNOW THIS. And yet they have refused for decades to accept this reduction of risk as a viable alternative to quitting all tobacco cold turkey.
This is, quite literally, premeditated murder.
Google "Dr Brad Rodu" for a succinct overview of the use of non-burning tobacco as a nicotine replacement.
Candy doesn't provide any benefit and rots your teeth… increasing the costs of dental care. You think the gov should start controlling/regulating/limiting/adding additional taxes to candy?
LOL! I love it.
My Jeep has a sticker on the side… "Hydro Carbon Powered Eco Vehicle"… aka, my avatar. I also like the bumper sticker I saw…. "My Jeep uses the Gas your Hybrid saves"….
Whether it is tobacco or marijuana, the fedgov has no right to be involved if everything remains in-state. Hopefully the next Congress will fix both of these attacks on Liberty in America after January 2011.
A little known fact about menthol cigarettes:
The exemption for menthol cigarettes from the flavorant ban was a sop to blacks who smoke them way out of proportion to the rest of the population. Apparently taste buds are different among different racial groups, a fact well known to the tobaccco companies. So the exemption is in essence a racial preference.
I guess the next step is to allow oregano for Italians and cucumber for WASPs.
They won't get rid of menthol cigarettes, they would lose the black vote.
Clearly, abolishing Menthol Cigarettes is a slap in the face to Black People.
If we did not have the Socialist intitlments like Medicaid / Medicare the Gubment would have less concern in our health. As they go broke paying for these things our lives are going to get worse, Proabition on unhealthy things, super nanny state, higher taxes, rationing, higher healthcare costs and yes Death Panels. Socialism does not work . We need to get back to the place the framers intended, unless we prefer serfdom. Its time for some big changes.
I've heard that, too. The chemicals that give tobacco a menthol flavor are just as bad, if not worse, than the tobacco. I also heard that they put fiberglass in dip so that it makes tiny cuts in your gums and allows the nicotine to get in your blood stream faster. When I was in college, I worked at Wal-Mart one summer and this one old redneck who worked there actually cut his gums with a box cutter before he put a dip in.
And the middle-aged stripper vote.
I challenge the contention that there's not "an American who doesn't know smoking isn't good for you." Typical Republican me-too "defense of freedom." Smoking is good for you, regardless of its alleged ill-effects, because it's a freedom. Further, the whole second-hand smoke argument used to ban smoking in bars, restaurants, and businesses for the sake of pseudo-hypochondriacs (they have a right to eat and drink in a smoke-free envirnoment, don't you know, never mind private property rights), has as much scientific foundation as the argument for global-warming. It's government "science" that will kill us, not smoking or sugar or soft drinks or transfat. And it's government "science" that is lopping off our liberties, one by one. .
I predict coffee getting the crap taxed out of it in the next 3-5 years. It will be cigs all over again. It's bad for your heart, makes your breath stink…blah, blah, blah…
Why weren't menthol cigarettes included in the flavor ban to begin with? I'll bet you a dollar Obama smokes Newports.
Well, I smoke. Thankfully my husband does not …nor do my 3 kids. And I know, as a result, I will not qualifiy for Obama's Health Care Bill …although I will be required to pay for it. SUCH a DEAL.
smoking is glamorous
that was the urban legend up here in Canada, except it was said that Player's Light filters had the equivalent of fiberglass insulation, thus the glass shards….
I used to smoke Du Maurier Kings but then the prices went stupid and so now I smoke a less expensive brand, but I enjoy lighting up as much as ever.
The government isn't going to ban tobacco. Both the state and Federal level of government are addicted to the taxes it generates.
Unbelievable! When will this lunacy end? Who gets to decide what is right and wrong for the rest of us and why them? I am a 40+ year old thin, non-alcohol drinker who takes vitamins, avoids prescription meds who has only called in sick to work once in the last 20 years – 3 days because of food poisoning. Oh, and I've smoked for just under 30 years and people half my age cannot keep up with me. Menthol a gateway? Hardly – I started smoking Marlboros and switched to Newport (menthol) years ago as I ended up giving away most of my Marlboros to smoke moochers until I realized these moochers would decline a Newport.
Con't: Also, here's some interesting perspective….I was buying my carton of Newports at the Indian reservation (bite me Feds! I pay half what I would at a non-reservation) and a black employee commented "well, you're not black so you must be from the east coast originally". I was born and raised in NY but didn't understand how or why he made that connection so I asked him about it and he indicated that Newports are primarily smoked by black Northeasterners. True? I don't know but makes you wonder doesn't it? Back to my point: What if I were queen for the day and decided to outlaw alcohol and prescription drugs and mandated smoking, exercise and taking vitamins cause that's what I believe is right for me and therefore for everyone else? I rest my case.
It would, if measures were then taken to cap it at that level and make it very hard to break that cap.
This is what you get when government creates an entitlement society. It's not for our prosperity that the government wants to control every aspect of our lives. It's the bottom dollar. When government creates "free" mandated health care(medicare, medicaid) then government believes with that entitlement that it has the power to control what you do with your body to keep costs down. So the real gateway is a beneficent federal state that gets the people hooked on entitlements that it then uses to control us. In other words, Uncle Sam is a pusher.
I don't like cigarettes. Dad smoked and always managed to nail me in the face no matter where I stood or sat. He also left one burning which burned my hand when I tripped and caught myself against his workbench, my hand landing on the burning end of the cigarette.
That being said I also recognize that if he wants to smoke, there's nothing my mother, my sister, or I can do to stop him. It's his choice to keep it up. Would we like him to quit? Sure, but it's his choice to smoke them or not. Same with every other smoker. If they want to shell out the cash to light one up, that's their business and no one else's.
Menthol does soothe the throat. It is used in cough drops. I almost died from pneumonia 25 years ago and was left with a reactive airway, which is an asthmatic condition. Most of the time I can pass by someone smoking without having a problem, but occasionally, if the conditions concentrate the smoke, or if it is cold and damp, I can have a very violent respiratory reaction to the smoke. I appreciate smokers that blow smoke away from others and try to not smoke in front of businesses.
Great response… Don't let government tell anybody what they can do or not do. All of these busy bodies need to get a life, and leave ours and others alone.
Bureaucrats Want It All!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzNHqaYcGzs&fe...
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Ronald Reagan
ditto. god bless you and I'll support your right to smoke (or anyone else's).
Oblahblah will not, of course, be held to this BS. Do as they say…
I want the government OUT OF MY LIFE. Period.
Let's see. The Democrats have been working to get cigarettes banned for years because of how bad they are for us, yet they want to legalize pot? How about we have both be legal and let us decide for ourselves if we want to destroy our bodies or not. Though pretty soon they won't be our bodies anymore. Our bodies will be the property of the government and we'll be told what we can and cannot put in our bodies. "What, you want cake for your birthday?! Impossible, cake is too sugary! Have some celery instead."
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