• Share your story about switching to vaping or any other smoke-free nicotine product.
• Mention the flavor (or flavors) that helped you break away from smoking, especially if it was/is menthol.
• Think about the tobacco laws in your community and state. Are you aware of incidents involving law enforcement and people (young people in particular) who use nicotine/tobacco products? What were the outcomes? Sharing local news stories will help FDA understand how their rule is being enforced by other agencies not subject to FDA’s authority.
• Remember: There are two separate dockets open for comment.

Why I, as a harm reduction advocate, do not support banning menthol cigarettes. And why I don’t think you should either.
Written by Danielle Jones

Banning menthol cigarettes, which are used by more than 85% of Black smokers, may sound like a righteous cause. Predatory marketing practices by tobacco companies are arguably the reason for racial disparities in the use of menthol cigarettes, and that is abhorrent. Full stop.

Banning menthol cigarettes in order to punish tobacco companies and “protect” Black Americans is misguided and dangerous. It completely ignores the reality of what happens to the PEOPLE who use these products, regardless of why.

Let’s consider the basis for such a ban – what do its supporters think it will accomplish? According to them, without legal access to menthol cigs people will quit, and youth will be less likely to initiate. If true, that would save lives.

But the study of a menthol ban in Canada revealed that nearly 80% of menthol users either switched to regular cigs or continued getting menthol ones via other means. The effect of their ban was that almost 80% of people were still smoking.

The war on drugs has shown us that making a high-demand product illegal overnight does not stop people from using it. All it does is make the use more dangerous via illicit markets and criminalization.

While FDA does not enforce against consumers, the FDA does not operate in a vacuum. Eric Garner wasn’t killed by the FDA or ATF. George Floyd wasn’t killed by Secret Service. Local PD are the ones on the ground using laws made by other agencies as pretext for these interactions.

Banning products, even one as deadly as cigarettes, doesn’t protect people. It hurts them. A recent study finds that nearly all the reductions in smoking stem from the initial discovery that cigarettes are deadly – not from any public health policy, tax, or campaign.

Anti-tobacco policies like high taxes, fines, shaming, discriminatory hiring, and residential restrictions serve as a proxy for discrimination and simply perpetuate a downward spiral of stress, exclusion, and poverty. They don’t help people stop smoking.

What does actually help? Harm reduction. A variety of affordable, accessible, and attractive products that are safer than cigarettes. Products like smokeless tobacco, nicotine pouches, and nicotine vapor products.

Instead of banning cigarettes, promote the use of safer alternatives. People will (already are) migrating to these products on their own, which eliminates demand for an illicit market and supports the self-determination theory, creating more effective and long-lasting change.

This solution preserves people’s dignity and autonomy, benefits public health and saves lives, promotes the economy, and costs the government nothing – in fact it will save money in the long term by reducing healthcare costs.

• Menthol Cigarettes, including cigarette & roll-your-own (RYO) tobacco, and heated tobacco products (HTPs) that “meet the definition of a cigarette in the FD&C Act.
• Flavored Cigars
• Blunt Wraps
• “Components and Parts”
  • Tobacco
  • Filter
  • Wrapper

Proposed Rule for Banning Menthol in Cigarettes

Proposed Rule for Banning Characterizing Flavors in Cigars