February 21, 2023
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator:
We write to express our strong support for proposed rules that the Food
and Drug Administration has issued to prohibit the manufacture and sale
of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. FDA’s proposals will
substantially improve public health by reducing youth tobacco use,
preventing tobacco-caused disease, and saving lives. We urge you to
support FDA’s proposed rules and oppose any effort to prevent or delay
FDA from finalizing and implementing them. It is time to put an end to
the tobacco industry’s targeted efforts to use flavored products to lure
youth into a lifetime of deadly addiction.
Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in the U.S.,
responsible for nearly one in five deaths and more than $241 billion in
health care costs each year. While smoking rates have declined, many
communities continue to experience high rates of smoking and
smoking-caused disease, including people with lower levels of income and
education, individuals living in rural areas, Native Americans, people
with a behavioral health condition, and the LGBTQ+ community. Congress
gave FDA tools to reduce the number of people who die of cancer, heart
disease, respiratory disease, and other tobacco-caused diseases. FDA is
now proposing to use one of those tools – the ability to set tobacco
product standards – to reduce the public health harms caused by menthol
cigarettes and flavored cigars.
Menthol cools and numbs the throat, which helps mask the harshness of
tobacco smoke and makes it easier for young people to start smoking.
Menthol cigarettes are also more addictive and harder to quit than
non-menthol cigarettes. As a result, menthol cigarettes have increased
the number of youth who smoke and the number of people who die
prematurely from smoking. Black communities, which have been the target
of menthol cigarette marketing for decades, have been especially harmed
by menthol cigarettes. Removing these products from the market would
reduce the number of youth who become addicted to tobacco, save hundreds
of thousands of lives, and advance health equity. Researchers estimate
that removing menthol cigarettes from the market would prevent up to
654,000 smoking-related deaths over time, including over 255,000
smoking-related deaths among Black Americans.
Cigars, which come in hundreds of kid-friendly flavors like Cherry
Dynamite and Tropical Fusion, are the second most popular tobacco
product among youth. In 2022, half a million youth were current cigar
smokers. Every day that passes, more than 800 kids try cigar smoking for
the first time, and there is extensive evidence about the role flavors
play in attracting youth to cigars. We need to protect kids from
flavored cigars because cigar smoke is composed of the same toxic and
carcinogenic constituents found in cigarette smoke. According to the
National Cancer Institute, cigar smoking can cause cancer of the oral
cavity, larynx, esophagus and lung.
FDA should finalize these proposed rules quickly. All flavors except
menthol are already prohibited in cigarettes. Removing other flavored
tobacco products from the market, including menthol cigarettes and
flavored cigars, is supported by strong scientific evidence and is long
overdue. We urge you to discourage any delays in the rulemaking process
and reject any legislative efforts to restrict the ability of FDA to
move forward with these rules or other efforts to reduce tobacco-caused
disease and death. Strong FDA action to reduce tobacco use is critical,
as tobacco use continues to claim the lives of nearly half a million
Americans every year.
Sincerely,