The regulation is apparently for manufacture, sale, and importation. Studies have shown that menthol cigarettes are more addictive, so this would almost certainly help even if we just assumed that everyone who would have smoked their first menthol cigarette smokes a regular one instead. The article I first heard about this (the one posted yesterday or so) on claimed that banning menthol cigarettes in 2010 would have, by 2020, prevented 2.3 million people from starting to smoke and would have prevented 17,000 premature deaths. Not sure how the numbers work out that way (2.3 million less smokers out of about 30 million current smokers is a lot, 17,000 less deaths over a 10 year period out of ~5 million smoking-related deaths is not).
I agree that the ban should just be for manufacture and importation. But the ban itself is likely to have its intended effects, given the available evidence.
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they killed Eric Garner for selling loosies
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Be warned, smoking a single cigarette now and then is how most people start getting addicted.
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The regulation is apparently for manufacture, sale, and importation. Studies have shown that menthol cigarettes are more addictive, so this would almost certainly help even if we just assumed that everyone who would have smoked their first menthol cigarette smokes a regular one instead. The article I first heard about this (the one posted yesterday or so) on claimed that banning menthol cigarettes in 2010 would have, by 2020, prevented 2.3 million people from starting to smoke and would have prevented 17,000 premature deaths. Not sure how the numbers work out that way (2.3 million less smokers out of about 30 million current smokers is a lot, 17,000 less deaths over a 10 year period out of ~5 million smoking-related deaths is not).
I agree that the ban should just be for manufacture and importation. But the ban itself is likely to have its intended effects, given the available evidence.