FDA revives federal effort to ban menthol cigarettes

U.S. health regulators are going to try again to ban menthol cigarettes

WASHINGTON -- U.S. health regulators are going to try again to ban menthol cigarettes, this time under pressure from African American groups to remove the mint flavor popular among Black smokers. The Food and Drug Administration has attempted several times to get rid of menthol but faced pushback from Big Tobacco, members of Congress and competing political interests in both the Obama and Trump administrations. Any menthol ban will take years to implement and will likely face legal challenges from tobacco companies. Thursday’s announcement is the result of a lawsuit filed by anti-smoking and medical groups last summer to force the FDA to finally make a decision on menthol, alleging that regulators had “unreasonably delayed” responding to a 2013 petition seeking to ban the flavor. The deadline for the agency’s response was Thursday. The FDA said it aims to introduce the regulations banning the flavor in the coming year.