FDA banning menthol cigarettes will backfire

OPINION:

One of the most enduring lessons of American history is that the banning of liquor sales and consumption (“the noble experiment”) was a colossal failure.

Drinking didn’t go down much, and the profits ended up going not to legitimate businesses but to bootleggers and the mob, while the murder rate soared to all-time highs in American history. It was the policy that made America’s most famous gangster, Al Capone, famous — and rich. 
 
I was reminded of this when I saw recently that the Food and Drug Administration wants to ban methanol cigarettes. Menthol cigarettes account for approximately 37% of cigarette sales. That demand will not disappear, but it will be driven underground, creating more significant risks to consumers. 

Ninety years after the failure of Prohibition, we are going to try it again with smokers. Ironically, many of the same liberals who campaigned for three decades for the legalization of marijuana and other soft drugs (something I generally support) now want to effectively ban smoking. 

The FDA’s proposed rule would “prohibit menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes and all characterizing flavors (other than tobacco) in cigars.” The government justifies its action because it has “the potential to significantly reduce disease and death from combusted tobacco product use.”

That sounds a lot like a reprise of what the Temperance League told us about alcohol prohibition: “Alcohol prohibition will save lives, reduce crime, cure social ills, and improve the nation’s health.”

But even if all of these virtuous results were true, since when is the federal government empowered to regulate the health and riskiness of Americans’ personal habits? Don’t we have a right as Americans to do things that are bad for us? Or do we slouch toward a nanny state?

There are a lot of dangerous activities that Americans take great pleasure in and choose to do even though it is risky. Rock climbing, parachuting out of airplanes, riding a motorcycle, and eating too much sugar (a sin that I am guilty of) are prominent examples. Remember when the New York mayor wanted to stop obesity by banning Big Gulps? Reading the misinformation in The New York Times is bad for you, but I wouldn’t ban the newspaper. 

We should have learned from the mostly failed war on drugs that the main impact was to enrich sellers of illegal drugs. Instead of the government getting funds by taxing marijuana (as many states do now), the money went to the drug cartels, crime syndicates, and street corner drug dealers. 

I’m not a smoker, and I don’t like it when people smoke around me and I have to inhale and smell the cigarette or cigar smoke. I taught my children not to smoke or use drugs, and smoking cessation programs in schools make a lot of sense. I have friends who died far too young because of their chain-smoking habits. On the other hand, I do, on rare occasions, smoke cigarettes — especially when stressed out. It relaxes me, just as I sometimes take chewables at night when I have trouble falling asleep. I don’t want a government official yanking the cigarette out of my mouth.  

The strangest and most illogical thing about this call to ban menthol cigarettes is that it comes at a time when smoking is rarer than at any time in at least 100 years and probably since the founding of our country. In the last 60 years, smoking is down by more than 60% for virtually all age groups, especially among the young. Anti-smoking education campaigns are working. Don’t change a winning strategy.

An FDA prohibition could backfire by making smoking “cool” and “sexy” again. When I was in high school, my friends and I would occasionally head to the beach and puff on marijuana joints. Part of the thrill was precisely that it was verboten. We were teenage rebels without a cause, and we were acting like James Dean. 

We should also consider that the government is also collecting billions of dollars of tax revenue from smokers. Driving cigarette sales underground puts the money into the hands of the criminals.

Yes, keep cigarettes out of the hands of children. But let adults, not the government regulators, make their own decisions about the risks of smoking.

• Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation and an economist with FreedomWorks. He served as a senior economist for former President Donald Trump.