Ban on the sale of menthol: what you need to know

As of May 20, 2020, the sale of menthol cigarettes and rolling tobacco is banned throughout the European Union. This decision follows the European Tobacco Products Directive of 2014. Often known only as a flavor, menthol is nevertheless a powerful addictive agent, which, by reducing the acrid and irritating aspect of tobacco, makes it easier for young people to start smoking. Due to its characteristics, menthol also allows the smoker to take deeper and more prolonged puffs, and increases the absorption and diffusion of nicotine in the body. In other words, menthol makes it easier to start smoking and harder to quit. The traditional association of menthol with the medical and health world makes menthol tobacco all the more dangerous: the consumer underestimates the real dangers involved, thinking they are smoking a less harmful product. This myth was deliberately spread and maintained by the tobacco industry, which highlighted the health dimension to launch its menthol products at the end of the 1920s. The tobacco industry sees menthol as an extremely effective marketing tool to attract younger generations to smoking. Even today, more than four out of five smokers in the United States started smoking with flavored products. Minorities in general are also the priority target of cigarette manufacturers for menthol products, such as women, the LGBT community, or even African-Americans in the United States. Through extremely effective campaigns, the tobacco industry has succeeded, for example, in very effectively integrating menthol into African-American culture. In the United States, nearly 90% of African-American smokers smoke menthol, compared to less than 30% of whites. All over the world, cigarette companies systematically oppose any regulation against menthol. In the European Union, the tobacco industry has deployed an intense lobbying effort against the European directive on tobacco products, which resulted in a four-year delay in the ban on the sale of menthol. The latter finally only concerns cigarettes and rolling tobacco. To prevent a shift in consumption towards cigars, cigarillos, heated tobacco or electronic cigarettes, it is essential that this regulation be extended to all these products that particularly attract the younger generations. To read our analysis of the marketing use of menthol:

Menthol, at the heart of the cigarette manufacturers' strategy

©Tobacco Free Generation

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