This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, June 3rd, 2021.

I'm Caleb Brown. The Biden FDA is planning to ban menthol cigarettes.

The public rationale is that it will save lives, but there's

not a lot of evidence that it will. Guy Bentley with The Reason Foundation has written about

the FDA's plans extensively. He argues the costs to civil society will ultimately be higher than the likely

benefits.

Let's get a little bit of background on this menthol band.

This was something that was initiated more than a decade ago, is that right?

Yes, during the Tobacco Control Act, which is put forward by the Obama administration,

there was a push to ban menthol. which is put forward by the Obama administration.

And there was a push to ban menthol cigarettes.

But in the negotiations for that legislation,

all flavored cigarettes with the exception of menthol cigarettes were banned

after strong objection by the Congressional Black Caucus and the tobacco

companies. So that never went into effect. It was, however, during the tenure of Scott Gottlieb during the Trump administration, put forward as a possible measure back on the table, but was never initiated as a Okay, so we have this weird situation now where the Congressional Black Caucus was able to successfully lobby to prevent the inclusion of mentals among flavored cigarettes, and we should mention that tobacco is a flavor of cigarette but

And now here we are 2021

Where menthol's at least from the outside looking in looks like we're singling out

the product among smokers that is vastly preferred by black Americans who smoke.

That's exactly right.

There was litigation launched

by several public health groups to pressure the FDA to ban

mental cigarettes and that came to a head this year with the FDA having to

...