How to Get 4.5 Million Americans to Quit Smoking

You wouldn’t think it would be easy to get nearly 4.5 million Americans—the equivalent of the entire state of Louisiana or Kentucky—to give up smoking. But it can be done in a single, straightforward step: prohibiting the sale of menthol cigarettes. That’s the conclusion of a new study in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research. The study is one more piece of evidence in favor of a nationwide menthol ban, the authors say. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed just such a ban in 2022, but in Dec. 2023, the Biden Administration postponed implementation following intense lobbying by tobacco company lobbyists and convenience store owners, who complained that the action could cost untold jobs and billions of dollars in sales. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “The FDA has done its work,” says Sarah Mills, the paper’s lead author and an assistant professor in the department of health behavior at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Public Health. “The White House has decided to put off their decision, which simply delayed what could be an important step in promoting public health.”  Medical experts have long argued that menthol cigarettes are a particularly pernicious form of tobacco. The flavoring cools the smoke, encouraging users to consume more, and nonsmokers—typically young people—to pick up the habit. “When added to cigarettes, menth...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Source Type: news