TY - JOUR T1 - What more evidence is needed? Remove menthol cigarettes from the marketplace—now JF - Tobacco Control JO - Tob Control SP - 493 LP - 494 DO - 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2021-056988 VL - 31 IS - 4 AU - Valerie Yerger Y1 - 2022/07/01 UR - http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/31/4/493.abstract N2 - Tobacco remains the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the USA and many other countries. However, among all racial and ethnic groups in the USA, African Americans bear the greatest burden from tobacco-related morbidity and mortality.1 Every year, 45 000 African Americans prematurely and unnecessarily die from tobacco-caused diseases. An estimated 85% of them smoked menthol cigarettes.2 Menthol’s sensory properties reinforce smoking, increase uptake of nicotine and toxic smoke components, and discourage cessation. Menthol’s cooling, anaesthetic and analgesic effects ease initiation among new smokers by masking the harshness and irritation of tobacco smoke, reducing pain sensations in the mouth and throat, and enabling deeper inhalation that facilitates greater exposure to nicotine.3 On 3 March 2009, Representative Henry Waxman and 124 congressional cosponsors introduced H.R. 1256—the ‘Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.’4 Representative Waxman’s Committee Report expressed concerns about the disproportionate use of menthol cigarettes among African Americans, the targeted marketing of menthol cigarettes in black communities, and the higher rates of lung cancer among African American smokers compared with non-African American smokers, urging the Secretary of Health and Human Services to move quickly to address the unique public health issues posed by menthol cigarettes. Yet, although most other characterising flavours in cigarettes were prohibited in 2009 under the final version of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, menthol was inexplicably excluded.5 It has been estimated that hundreds of thousands of African Americans and other menthol smokers are destined to die prematurely if the exemption of menthol is allowed to continue.6 The disproportionate toll of menthol … ER -