FDA ban flavored cigarettes from September 22nd, 2009

Dr Lawrence Deyton, the new director of the newly created FDA Center For Tobacco Products hit the ground running this week by sending a letter to all tobacco manufacturers informing them that as of September 22nd, a cigarette or any of its component parts may not contain “an artificial or natural flavor (other than tobacco or menthol) or an herb or spice, including strawberry, grape, orange, clove, cinnamon, pineapple, vanilla, coconut, licorice, cocoa, chocolate, cherry, or coffee, that is a characterizing flavor of the tobacco product or tobacco smoke.” As of September 22nd, any cigarette that violates the prohibition is adulterated and subject to seizure.

The ban on clove basically outlaws the type of cigarettes known as a kretek, which are primarily imported from Indonesia, although we may expect some legal wrangling over the meaning of the phrase “characterizing flavor” in the legislation. The stated purpose of this part of the new FDA legislation is to stop the tobacco industry from trying to use these flavors to attract young people to start smoking.

There are of course a few loopholes and some matters requiring clarification. The most obvious loophole is that the ban only applies to cigarettes, and not cigars or smokeless tobacco. The wording of the legislation appears to try to include some products calling themselves “cigars” that are really cigarettes disguised in tobacco-added wrapping paper (e.g. Winchesters, which are the same size as a cigarette, with a filter, but with tobacco added to the paper).

The other controversial part of this legislation is the exemption of menthol from the ban. Far more adolescents smoke menthol cigarettes then smoke all of those other flavors added together. One suspects that menthol was not banned immediately because that would have been very strongly opposed by some parts of the industry.

However, overall it makes sense to ban these flavors, and to re-examine the scientific evidence on the effects of menthol in order to determine if that flavoring should also be banned.