Register or Log In with DAME, to get your daily Weather, Horoscope and stock updates.

Newports Dodge a Bullet

Clove and cinnamon cigarettes may soon go the way of absinthe, but menthols are here to stay

by Kate Torgovnick
Posted May 14th, 6:00am | News

It's hard to like tobacco executives. Between The Insider and all those kooky Truth ads, it's easy to think of them as a bunch of rich, old, white men sitting around a boardroom laughing about cases of lung cancer. Still, it's not often that you actually get to see the industry's dirty hands at play.

But this morning, the New York Times reported on a bill making its way through Congress that seeks to ban flavored cigarettes—like cinnamon (popular with high schoolers), strawberry (big with the middle schoolers) and cloves (a favorite of crazy aunts everywhere). But there is one flavored cigarette that is conspicuously absent from the bill: menthols. And no, this wasn't an oversight. As the article says, "Menthol is seen as politically off limits because mentholated brands are so crucial to the American cigarette industry. They make up more than one-fourth of the $70 billion American cigarette market and are becoming increasingly important to the industry leader, Philip Morris USA, without whose lobbying support the legislation might have no chance of passage."

And this is even after medical studies have come out showing that menthol smokers are exposed to more toxins with each drag than regular smokers, and that menthol smokers have a harder time quitting then their Camel-and-Marlboro puffing peers.

Oh well, party at the Newport plant.

» Back to the Dose