The tobacco legislation signed into law recently bans all flavored cigarettes except the number one flavor preferred by children.
Yep they banned bananarama and cinnamon smokes. Hell, they even specifically banned cloves. How many kids even know what a clove is? They know what menthol is I can tell you that. Unfortunately, so can Harvard.
You know what I've heard here at Kos? Well, it's not like there's any menthol candy? Really? Menthol is the active ingredient in mint. Like peppermint. Like candy canes, mint chewing gum, mint patties and chocolate mints. Even, if mint wasn't in candy, it's ever present in toothpastes and mouthwashes and cough drops.
Kids know what mint is. And image-conscious teenagers find mint cigarettes to be to their liking.
Shockingly, there have been doubts expressed at Kos about whether they market directly to teens? Really? Google "Menthol Joe" and see what pops up. Who do you think buys Kool Mixx? And when Kool Mixx is sponsoring rap concerts, who do you think is attending? Not the Medicare crowd. Black teen smokers overwhelmingly choose menthols at an 80% rate.
Philip Morris continues to advertise in magazines with high youth readership, including Sports Illustrated, People, Rolling Stone, Inside Sports, Hot Rod, Glamour, Vibe(dec. June 09), Sport, Motor Trend, Spin,and others. All of these magazines have youth readership (12 to 17 years old) totaling more than two million or more than 15 percent of the magazine’s overall readership, according to data obtained from Simmons Market Research Bureau, an independent market research firm.
I'm not questioning their right to advertise. But to say that they're not looking for kids is dishonest.
Harvard found that the tobacco industry used and manipulated menthol levels to recruit new adolescents and young adult smokers. Why?
If you look at another study, The 2002 National Youth Tobacco Survey found that middle school students are more likely to smoke menthols and 90 percent of all adult smokers began while in their teens or earlier
Since individual brandpreferences tend to be locked in fairly early in life,the menthol brand that can capture teenagers and young adults invariably becomes the next market leader.
Menthol -- a non-addictive, monocyclic, terpene alcohol that stimulates cold receptors -- is used in 90% of all cigarettes made in the U.S, the researchers said.
And menthol cigarette sales have remained steady while overall cigarette sales dropped by 22% from 2000 to 2005.
Researchers atHarvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have found that tobacco companies have deliberately adjusted menthol levels in cigarettes to recruit and addict young smokers by creating a milder experience for the first-time smoker.
To all the white people and high SES'ers---
"Surprisingly, we found that [white] teens smoked menthol at higher rates than expected, indicating that" urban trends are expanding to other areas (Gardner, HealthDay/U.S. News & World Report, 7/16).
Menthol makes cigarettes more palatable to the novice smoker.
"If anything, menthol is being used as a candy to help the toxin go down," said Dr. Gregory Connolly, senior author of a paper being published in the September issue of the American Journal of Public Health. "If we let the industry go ahead and willy-nilly design the product the way they want to, it's going to lead to the premature death of millions and millions of Americans. Our research says we have to go after this."
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 new law is supposed to ban advertising 1000 feet from schools. That's nice, but when you have children whose only access to groceries is at the localcorner store where the cigarette advertisements are wall paper, cutting down on billboards isn't doing much. When they're paying atthe register and they're staring at cartons of Newports and Menthols, who needs billboards?
Philip Morris' Marlboro Menthols are the #2 menthol in the country. And who pushed for the tobacco legislation that basically does nothing, and places two tobacco industry reps on the Oversight Committee in case somone decides to do something? Philip Morris.
Not that the FDA isn't doing anything, they've decided to engage in an 18 month study on menthols. That's odd, they didn't have to study banarama or cloves. But the flavor that's proven, by the likes of Harvard, to be attracting children like flies needs further review. And then maybe something will happen, but I'm not holding my breath. Not without some menthols. Hell, it's only 3000 kids a day that will start smoking in the meantime. And menthol will make it easier for them to do so.
Here's Obama preparing to sign the law. At 00:55 he mentions "flavored cigarettes to mask the taste of tobacco" - Watch as he's signing, you may notice 2 of the four children are african american, one appears to be latina .