22nd Century supports FDA policy advancements

22nd Century Group supports the recent move by the US Food and Drug Administration to send final rules aimed at banning menthol in cigarettes and banning flavored cigars to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review, a key regulatory step toward the rules becoming federal policy. In April 2022, the FDA stated that these proposed policies had the potential to reduce disease and death associated with smoking and support smoking cessation. Stop smoking experts largely agree such policies could save lives and mitigate the creation of new smokers, as well as help to address racial disparities in the harms of smoking. The policy submissions, originally expected earlier this year, are more than a decade in the making. The FDA officially began exploring the concept of a menthol ban in July 2013. FDA’s April 28, 2022 press release announcing its rule making stated that the proposed menthol standard will “reduce the appeal of cigarettes, particularly to youth and young adults, decreasing the likelihood that nonusers who would otherwise experiment with menthol cigarettes would progress to regular smoking” and “improve the health and reduce the mortality risk of current menthol cigarette smokers by decreasing cigarette consumption and increasing the likelihood of cessation.” Tobacco use is widely regarded as the number one cause of preventable death in the US, and menthol cigarettes are widely documented to increase the addictive nature of cigarette smoking, as well as target minority communities. Flavored cigar products are known to be particularly appealing to youth and have been shown to be popular among younger or underage smokers.