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USA: Study finds big tobacco lures young smokers with menthol cigarettes

A new study has found that tobacco companies are manipulating menthol levels in cigarettes to appeal to newer, younger smokers as part of a deliberate strategy to get younger people, particularly African-Americans addicted.

Dr Gregory Connolly, senior author of a paper being published in the September issue of the American Journal of Public Health said, "If anything, menthol is being used as a candy to help the toxin go down. If we let the industry go ahead and design the product the way they want to, it's going to lead to the premature death of millions and millions of Americans."

A bill pending in Congress would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration power to regulate menthol and other additives in cigarettes.

John R. Seffrin, Chief Executive Officer of the American Cancer Society, said, "This study provides evidence of one of the many ways tobacco companies manipulate the ingredients in cigarettes in an effort to entice and addict new consumers. Legislation in Congress would give the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco products and put an end to tobacco industry practices that prey upon children and blatantly mislead adults. The bill would end the marketing of tobacco products to children, force companies for the first time to disclose the ingredients in their products and allow the FDA to regulate all tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, based on science."

Menthol itself is not addictive, but it can ease the delivery of nicotine, which is highly addictive. More than 70 percent of African-American smokers use menthol cigarettes, compared with about 30 percent of white smokers. It's unclear if menthol cigarettes are more harmful than "regular" cigarettes, the study authors said.

Connolly and his colleagues looked at internal tobacco industry documents which showed that companies researched how menthol levels could affect sales among different demographic groups. Cigarettes with milder menthol levels appeal to younger smokers.

The deliberate manipulation of menthol levels was accompanied by more focused advertising of mentholated cigarettes and the introduction of new brands such as Marlboro Milds in 2000.

Connolly said, "The product itself stands outside the law, and industry is exploiting that, tailoring their brands to specific groups and integrating that with what marketing they have left and, unfortunately, they're being successful. The outcome should be regulation of menthol by the FDA. It's the one hole."

The study authors also argued that this industry practice is a violation of the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), which prohibits companies from marketing directly or indirectly to youths.

David Sylvia, a spokesman for cigarette maker Philip Morris USA, said: "We don't believe that this study's hypothesis or conclusions are supported by the facts cited in the study. In fact, we disagree with their conclusion that menthol levels in our products were manipulated to gain market share among adolescents, and are unable to find any evidence supporting that conclusion within this study."

Source: Healthfinder, 16th July 2008
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