Opinion: Former U.S. surgeons general: The U.S. should ban menthol cigarettes
The FDA estimates that taking menthol cigarettes off the market would save up to 654,000 lives over the next 40 years, including as many as 238,000 Black lives.
As former U.S. surgeons general, we call on the Biden administration to immediately finalize Food and Drug Administration rules that will prohibit the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars.
Over the decades, cigarettes have been responsible for death and disease in millions of Americans. January marked the 60th anniversary of U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry’s landmark Report, “Smoking and Health,” which definitively documented the causal link between smoking, disease, and death. The report had a monumental impact on the public health approach to smoking. Tobacco control policies implemented between 1964 and 2014 saved 8 million lives in the United States. In 1964, 42% of people in America smoked; today, less than 12% do.
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