Exemption for additive troubles many critics
Jump to full article: Chicago Tribune, 2008-08-13
Author: Tim Jones * Chicago Tribune correspondent
Intro: Eighty years after a man named Lloyd "Spud" Hughes, as legend has it, accidentally mixed his tobacco with menthol crystals, Congress is fighting over whether to ban these popular flavored cigarettes.
Mentholated cigarettes started out in the 1920s with such names as Spud, Listerine, the Original Eucalyptus Smoke and Snowball. Today they're sold as Newport, Kool and Marlboro Menthol, the smokes of choice among the black community.
Critics charge they are products designed specifically to lure young blacks into a lifetime of tobacco use. . . .
the issue of what, if anything, should be done about menthols has proved complicated for political Washington --and for smokers. . . .
"We see this as a huge issue," said Jan Roberts, a registered nurse who runs the Genesee County Asthma Network, in Flint. "It certainly seems like the tobacco industry has a pretty strong hold on our community."
The Congressional Black Caucus, whose members represent many of the densely populated and largely black urban centers where menthol cigarettes are most popular, is split on the menthol question as well. . . .
A 2002 report, "The African Americanization of menthol cigarette use in the United States," found that tobacco companies nearly doubled their market share in the African-American community from the early 1960s through the late 1970s. Part of the campaign, the report said, was built on a perception that menthols are safer to smoke than non-menthol brands.
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