Aimee Schiefelbein, Quit Coach, Service Delivery:

My first cigarette was a menthol cigarette, and in the years where I did smoke occasionally, I always sought them out. They appealed to me as a young person simply because the minty flavor made the poison that was in the cigarette taste much better. They were cool and refreshing.  I could forget about the toxins I was inhaling into my body. They just tasted so good.

Last year, the FDA banned all cigarettes flavored like fruit or candy in an effort to deter children and nonsmokers from picking up that first cigarette. Menthol, however, was not banned. Tobacco companies like Lorillard have continued to defend the position that the minty flavoring itself has never been proven to cause harm to the body. The Addiction Journal recently published the results of 11 studies of menthol cigarettes as part of an effort to determine whether menthol flavoring contributes to the addictive properties of cigarettes. What they found is menthols are seen disproportionately higher in African American populations and youth in particular.

In the 1960's the tobacco industry noticed that menthol was particularly popular with African Americans, which led to heavy marketing (and discounted prices) of menthols in African American communities. According to the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network, 82% of African American adult smokers and 90% of African American young adult smokers prefer menthols (statistics that are too impactful to ignore)! More money is spent trying to addict African Americans under the age of 30 than any other race group or age. Recently, more evidence has shown that menthols are a starter cigarette for youth because (surprise, surprise!) menthol reduces the harsh flavor of the cigarette. To make matters worse, new studies have found that those who smoke menthols tend to be less successful when they quit.

Youth and African Americans are hardly the only targeted populations. As Ryan Crawford previously highlighted in his Out to Quit series, Big Tobacco carefully selects its targets, another being the LGBT community. The agendas and methods of tobacco companies are and have always been insidious, and we must continue to speak out against them.

Sadly, the evidence is clear...smoking kills half of all lifetime users, no matter what kind of cigarettes they use. According to the World Health Organization, smoking kills more than AIDS, illegal and legal substances, road accidents, murder and suicide combined. If banning menthol cigarettes could deter just a fraction of people from picking up that first cigarette, then my vote is for a ban.