Spread Of Menthol Cigarettes Among Young People.
The conflict over menthol-flavored cigarettes heats up again Thursday as a US Food and Drug Administration hortatory panel continues a series of hearings on whether to prohibit the cigarettes. The FDA's Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee consists of nine members and includes doctors, scientists and social vigorousness experts. The tobacco perseverance is represented by three non-voting members rxlist. The council has until next March to broadcast its menthol findings to the US Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Much of the disputation centers on on that shows that children are particularly drawn to menthol cigarettes, with nearly 45 percent of smokers venerable 12 to 17 using them, according to a 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Most knavish teenaged smokers - and 82,7 percent of pitch-black full-grown smokers - favor menthols, the same inspection found. "The manufacturers would have you believe there is not a scintilla of hint that menthol is more dangerous than other cigarettes to the individual smoker, but we do not agree," said Ellen Vargyas, generalized counsel for the American Legacy Foundation, a smoking abortion and cessation organization in Washington, DC, founded with funding from the milestone 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between the tobacco assiduity and state governments.
And "Over 80 percent of African-American smokers smoke menthol, and African-American smokers have the highest rates of lung cancer. We also be versed African-Americans with lung cancer are more acceptable to snuff it from lung cancer," she told HealthDay. In addition, the esteem of menthols all younger, newer smokers suggests that maybe the minty liking does encourage people to start, perhaps by masking the acrimonious taste of regular cigarettes, Vargyas added. "We be sure the younger you are and the newer the smoker you are, the more likely you are to smoke menthol," said Vargyas. "There is a very rigorous correlation between being a teenaged smoker and menthol cigarettes".
That's no coincidence, hold smoking opponents: The tobacco exertion has long targeted schoolgirl and minorities for menthol cigarette marketing, even manipulating menthol satisfaction in different brands in an effort to recruit new smokers to each youth, according to the US National Cancer Institute and the Harvard School of Public Health. The polemic over how menthols should be regulated was stand up discussed in July, during the second round of hearings held by the tobacco products monitory committee.
