Menthol Madness

[Storm.3.1.14]

Lately, I've been doing some serious investigating into the question of menthol cigarettes, which were my poison of choice when I smoked.

1. Menthol was added to cigarettes so that the cool, soothing, minty vapors would "numb" the throat, thus making it easier to inhale the smoke more deeply. Menthol smokers can attest to this because we have had, at some desperate point or another, had to bum a Winston or Marlboro or Camel off a fellow smoker. ARGH! That was an incredibly distasteful experience! (Oh, but we still smoked the whole thing, now didn't we?)

2. Studies are showing that menthol smokers have a harder time quitting because, it is believed, that these people are also inherent very much attached to mint as a flavor. (Much in the same way that people either love cilantro or hate it with a passion. There seems to be very little middle ground.) I can attest to this one because mint certainly is one of my favorite flavors, hands down (the others being maple and coffee and raspberry and cinnamon).

3. About the point above: I have been using Altoids at work as a little "pick me up". An intense flavor "freshening" to drive home the fact that I don't smoke and, therefore, don't have an ashy mouth. This has been highly effective because, well, I am wired to really like mint. And I was wired, some say, to really like menthol cigarettes, too. The 2 are linked in some psysiological way, and Big Tobacco figured it out. That's...just...great.

4. I had heard that menthol cigarettes contain fiberglass, and that inhaling mentholated smoke introduces fiberglass particles into the lungs, which cause bleeding. I still haven't found evidence of this, but am still looking. Does anyone know more about this? Please, share below.

5. Finally, menthols are extremely popular with Black youth and upper-class Whites. I have come across many, many, many mentions of these statistics, but no real reasons why this is. The few articles that dared venture a guess suggested that menthol cigarettes, especially Newports, are almost exclusively marketed to Blacks, with almost no White faces used in their ads. And, since menthols are easier to inhale and supposedly harder to quit, it's thought that Big Tobacco wants to deeply and hopelessly addict lower income minorities, who most often die from smoking. They do this with the cigarette formulation that is easiest to tolerate, and the hardest to quit. They have made it the "Black cigarette".

And as for why more upper-class Whites prefer menthols, I found one mention of the idea that, since menthols soothe the throat, there is less embarrassing coughing, which would be considered "tacky" by the upper crust. And there was a mention of menthol cigarettes not smelling up the clothes of the smoker as much as regular cigarettes, which would make the wealthier folks smell..."trashy".

The search goes on because I am curious now to know everything I can about the specific poison I left behind. So I can share real and valuable information with any who might ask in the future.

Do you know something about menthols that I didn't mention here? Please, share with all of us below!

STORM (Day 48)

[rosemarymom]

Interesting blog!  I didn't smoke menthols but have heard some of the same info on them.  Whichever, it's a nasty addiction.  Congrats on your day 48.  I'm at 27 in the books!

[tambolina]

I have wondered about menthol too. I was a Marlboro Light girl myself and I am convinced that they put something in those to make me ONLY smoke them. Nothing else would do. 

[annb]

No lie Tammy! I always felt if they discontinued Marlboro lights I would/could quit! Storm, when I was a teenager all the kids used to say "Kools" had fiberglass in them. Urban myth or fact I don't know!!!

[Ms.J_11-10-2013]

I know this...I smoked Marlboro 100 ultra lites and my husband smokes Kools- a few times I picked his up by mistake and inhaled from my toes up.....thought I was gonna die!!!!....Saw teeky birds....coughed up a lung..... wanted to die!!!!! 

Congratulations on 48 days!!

Ms. "J"

[karma7777]

yes very interesting.. I have always tried to figure out why Newports were the brand that most people around me smoked. I used to smoke newports because those were the cigs i used to steal from my uncle when i was a teenager. I could never smoke nonmenthols used to make me gag. I eventually turned to camel menthols.

[cheyenne7]

Interesting, like others have said about their brands....I smoked salem lights, and I too always claimed that if they stopped making them, I would quit because I couldn't smoke anything else.....

Ha....so not true, I'm sure I would have found another brand to love in time....

I use to think that my dad smoked Winstons and we had Piels (SP) blue ribbon beer in the house so that the kids would never try to steal either...lol

ps....I am white, and come from a working class family....so the mentol stereo type doesn't fit here : )

[Mrs.Rum]

I smoked Marlboro Lights.  Thousands of them.  LOL!  But occasionally I'd buy a pack of menthols  for a change.  I liked them but they weren't my favorites.  Once in a while though....

[cheryl_1-1-14]

Marlboro Ultra Light 100 was my drug of choice.  "Ultra Light" HaHaHa!!  What a joke.  Then I switched to Marlboro Special Blend Lights when the price jumped $10 a carton a few years ago.

I couldn't handle menthol.  They made me cough.

[promise_judy]

When I was younger I used to smoke Newports and then I quit smoking. In fact I didn't smoke for years and when I started smoking again I smoked light cigarettes and never  mehtol (I always felt it was bad for you) but never a special brand--just what was cheapest. Although I never liked the flavor of cigarettes or the smell, I used to always drink something (pepsie, coke or coffee) when i smoked. I now don't drink any sodas but I LOVE coffee every morning--and its tastes better to me now than when I smoked. I still like to have mint every now and then (teas, and especially mint gum). Most of the people I know smoke methol cigarettes never thought much about it until now. I think it is interesting what you blogged about methol cigarettes. I wonder if it truly is harder to stop smoking them.

I know this I am soooo happy I quit smoking that I can't even think of why I ever started in the first place.

[Thomas3.20.2010]

OK! You asked for it...

Menthol is found in cigarettes, cigars, little cigars, smokeless tobacco products, and tobacco rolling paper.

About 90% of cigarettes marketed in the United States contain menthol, even if they are not advertised as menthol cigarettes. Only cigarettes containing a certain amount of menthol (0.1% to 0.45% of the tobacco filler weight) are marketed and advertised as menthol cigarettes.

Menthol was first added to cigarettes during the 1920s. Spud was the first cigarette brand to add menthol.

There is no evidence to suggest that fiberglass is in menthol cigarettes. 

Some research shows that menthol cigarettes may be more addictive than non-menthol cigarettes.

An estimated 43.8 million people, or 19.0% of all adults (aged 18 years or older), in the United States smoke cigarettes [13]. Approximately one out of every four cigarettes sold in the United States has the descriptor “menthol” on the cigarette pack. Menthol cigarettes are disproportionately smoked by certain groups, such as adolescents, African Americans, adult females, and families with lower income. 

·         Very high proportions of black/African American adolescents smoke menthol cigarettes. In 2008, about 7 out of 10 (71.9%) adolescent African American smokers reported smoking menthol cigarettes. However, this is significantly lower than the 82.7% (about 8 out of 10) of African American adult smokers who reported smoking menthol cigarettes in 2008.

  
• While the prevalence of smoking among adolescents declined from 1997 to 2007 (36.4% to 20%), the percentage of adolescent smokers smoking menthol cigarettes increased from 2004 to 2008 (43.4% to 48.3%).
  
• Almost half of adult menthol cigarette smokers are from minority racial/ethnic groups, such as African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Hawaiians, and Other Pacific Islanders.
  
• Adult smokers with family incomes of less than $50,000 were more likely to smoke menthol cigarettes than adult smokers with higher family incomes.

Studies and evidence from tobacco industry documents showed that, in the past, the tobacco industry has a history of marketing menthol cigarettes to women, youth, and minority racial/ethnic groups, including African Americans/blacks, Latinos/Hispanics, and Asian Americans.

_{1.                Sutton, C.D. and R.G. Robinson, The marketing of menthol cigarettes in the United States: populations, messages, and channels. Nicotine Tob Res, 2004. 6 Suppl 1: p. S83-S91.}

_{2.                United States Department of Health and Human Services, Tobacco use among U.S. racial/ethnic minority groups—African Americans, American Indians and Alaska Natives, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics: A report of the surgeon general. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; 1998.}

_{3.                Gardiner, P.S., The African Americanization of menthol cigarette use in the United States. Nicotine Tob Res, 2004. 6 Suppl 1: p. S55-S65.}

http://smokefree.gov/menthol-cigarettes

Every living former U.S. health secretary and surgeon general and every CDC director—a bipartisan group of 20 from every administration since President Lyndon B. Johnson—called on tobacco giants Philip Morris, Lorillard and R.J. Reynolds to stop selling and marketing menthol cigarettes. The group, the Citizens' Commission to Protect the Truth, also urged the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes. 

In 2009, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act banned all flavored cigarettes—except menthol. Though the act fell short of banning menthol, it authorized the FDA to regulate tobacco products. The FDA has not yet acted, despite overwhelming evidence that banning menthol cigarettes from sale would greatly benefit public health and save lives.

http://mag.newsweek.com/2014/04/18/menthol-cigarettes-big-tobacco.html

The Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee is a  newly created outside advisory group required by law for the FDA to use in determining further tobacco regulation. The TPSAC report was delivered in March 2011, and its concluding recommendation was that "...removal of menthol cigarettes from the marketplace would benefit public health in the U.S."

The 2013 FDA report on menthol reinforced the findings of the 2011 TPSAC report, and it was able to update the data by including a range of scientific studies that had been conducted in the period between the two reports. The major findings of the July report are:

·         There is little evidence to suggest that menthol cigarettes are more or less toxic or contribute to more disease risk to the user than non-menthol cigarettes;

·         Adequate data suggest that menthol use is likely associated with increased smoking initiation by youth and young adults;

·         The data indicate that menthol in cigarettes is likely associated with greater addiction; and

·         Menthol smokers show greater signs of nicotine dependence and are less likely to successfully quit smoking

Although the report concluded, as have previous reports and studies, that it is not menthol itself that increases the risk of heart disease and cancer, among other diseases, the remaining conclusions - that youth and young adults are more likely to start smoking due to menthol, that menthol smokers are more addicted, and that they are less likely to successfully quit smoking - are serious indictments of menthol cigarettes and support the TPSAC conclusion that the public health of the U.S. would benefit by removing menthol cigarettes from the marketplace.

Despite the clear data that menthol cigarettes are a danger to public health, there are also other considerations the FDA will need to take into account before taking any action. Given the large number of menthol users in the U.S. - 12-15 million smokers - an illicit market for menthol cigarettes could develop if a complete menthol ban is proposed.  African American menthol users could feel that a ban on menthol would be discriminatory, given that community's overwhelming preference for menthol cigarettes. The tobacco industry, and particularly those companies which are heavily dependent upon menthol product sales, could (and likely will) go to court immediately to fight any rule banning or changing menthol levels. The tobacco industry could also develop menthol substitutes, which would undermine any rule banning or adjusting menthol levels.

The American Cancer Society and the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network have carefully examined the detailed scientific reports of both the FDA and its Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee. As a result, they have concluded that the science is clear and that menthol cigarettes pose a threat to public health. Therefore, they urge the FDA, after taking into consideration the scientific evidence and input from the current public comment period, to take swift action to ban menthol cigarettes from the marketplace. The result will be a healthier America.

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/news/expertvoices/post/2013/08/28/menthol-cigarettes-whats-the-big-deal...