According to a study, teens who started smoking menthol were more likely to smoke for three days or more in a 30-day period than their peers who smoked regular cigarettes. They also had a 38% higher risk of regular smoking, and an 8% higher risk of nicotine dependence. At the same time, young smokers who switch from menthol to regular cigarettes often reduce their later tobacco use.
Menthol Cigarette is a unique product. It almost has an anesthetic structure that makes it easier to smoke, "notes Andrea Vacant, an assistant professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, who studies young adults but is not part of the tobacco team.
"They give a certain taste to the product. You can think of your experience using a cough drop when you are sick and how it soothes your throat and reduces irritation. "Explains Vacant.
Previous research has shown a link between menthol and smoking in childhood, but study author Eric Leas, an assistant professor at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health at the University of California, San Diego, said the study's approach was to smoke. Patterns change over time.
This paper, published online June 6 at the JAVA Network Open, analyzed data collected between September 2013 and November 2019 regarding smoking habits of young people. Participants were between 12 and 14 years of age at the start of the study, and their use of tobacco was tracked in subsequent years. Vacant, who co-authored an editorial that accompanied the research, acknowledged that the study offers a new perspective on how tobacco habits change over time, including the significant role that menthol products play in smoking among teens.
But Leas warned that although research seems to support FDA's proposed menthol ban, there is no consistent evidence that such a ban could be 100%.
"These results do not really provide an indication of how the ban will work, because preferences may change" he said. "But it is an indication that teens who use menthol smoke more often and appear more dependent or addicted"
In fact, the entire body of tobacco research has found that "menthol tobacco is a public health hazard" notes Vacant. "There have been a number of modeling studies conducted ... which show that hundreds of thousands of deaths could be avoided by banning menthol"he said.
According to the FDA, more than 18 million Americans smoke menthol cigarettes, most of them from the black community, where about 85% of smokers prefer menthol. In comparison, only 30 percent of white smokers and 41% of Asian smokers prefer menthol products.
The new study focused only on smoking and did not examine the data on e-cigarette use. According to the 2021 FDA Annual National Youth Tobacco Survey, e-cigarettes are the most widely used tobacco product among young people.
Leas acknowledged that smoking has become more popular among American teenagers, but added that this does not mean that the former is no longer a problem. "This sample is composed of young people who smoke cigarettes and is sufficient to do research on that," he said. "While [vaping] is still the most popular form of tobacco use, tobacco is still used by a large proportion of young people."
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