Our partner Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public’s Trust, just published this column on the menthol ban that revealed some stunning facts:
- A Yale School of Public Health study partly funded by the FDA found that banning menthol e-cigarettes increased the sale of regular cigarettes and that 71 percent of the increased cigarette sales were non-menthol, “suggesting that restrictions on menthol cigarettes would not substantially reduce sales.”
- Concerned the ban “would simply create a black market for these products,” Congressional investigators cited real world state experiments: After California’s 2022 ban, “a study found that roughly one in five cigarettes smoked were menthols even six months later, of which 27.6 percent were imported.” Clearly, illicit smugglers (read: China and Mexican drug cartels) will fill the void created by a ban.
