R.J. Reynolds has wasted no time since California’s ban on flavored tobacco went into impact in late December. “California, We’ve Received You Lined,” the corporate declared in daring letters on a flier mailed to its cigarette clients.
The legislation prohibits flavors, odors or “tastes” in tobacco merchandise, together with menthol cigarettes. However antismoking specialists argue that R.J. Reynolds, the maker of Camel and Newport manufacturers, is attempting to bypass the ban by luring people who smoke with a set of what it says are new non-menthol variations providing “a style that satisfies the senses” and “a brand new recent twist.”
The marketing campaign is seen by critics as a provocation of California authorities who’re alleged to implement the ban, which features a provision outlawing packaging or claims that recommend a product has a taste. The Meals and Drug Administration is also shifting ahead with a nationwide plan to take menthol cigarettes off the market.
To public well being authorities, the potential discount in smoking charges from a menthol ban might prolong the size and high quality of thousands and thousands of lives. To R.J. Reynolds and different tobacco corporations, the lack of gross sales from menthol cigarettes might be financially damaging.
Luis Pinto, the vice chairman of communications at R.J. Reynolds, mentioned in an e mail that the “merchandise launched in California meet and adjust to all relevant regulatory necessities.” He added that the brand new cigarettes “will not be topic to the lately enacted ban as a result of they don’t have a distinguishable style or aroma apart from tobacco.”
However whereas not all tobacco-control specialists are sure that the brand new merchandise violate the California legislation, they do agree that the Reynolds advertising and marketing marketing campaign displays decades-long efforts by tobacco corporations to protest and flout authorities rules.
Dr. Robert Jackler, a professor at Stanford Drugs who supplied the advertisements to The New York Occasions, known as the brand new advertising and marketing “outrageous.”
“The factor that surprises me is there’s no camouflage,” mentioned Dr. Jackler, who acquired the mailers together with employees members of Stanford’s program on tobacco promoting. “They’re saying, ‘That is our menthol substitute. And by the way in which — wink, wink — it’s not actually menthol.’”
The tobacco taste ban in California initially took form as a legislation handed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020. Reynolds and others gathered signatures to let voters determine by means of a referendum on the problem. In November, 63 p.c of voters permitted the ban.
In mid-December, the U.S. Supreme Courtroom refused to dam the legislation, rejecting a request by Reynolds. The corporate had cited “substantial monetary losses” as a probable end result of the ban, on condition that menthol cigarettes make up one-third of the cigarette market. The corporate had additionally famous that if the ban have been to take impact, its clients “might by no means pledge the identical model loyalty.”
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The corporate had already sought to have the Supreme Courtroom hear a separate attraction to the Los Angeles County taste ban, which was handed in 2019.
Bans on flavored tobacco merchandise have been imposed in Massachusetts and dozens of cities and counties. A number of states and quite a few native authorities have outlawed flavored e-cigarettes. The California legislation additionally applies to vaping merchandise.
The California Division of Public Well being mentioned that it supplied outreach to tobacco retailers on the legislation however that “enforcement is left to the native jurisdictions.” The Reynolds advertising and marketing marketing campaign was earlier reported on the L.A. Taco information web site.
Menthol has been a serious goal for individuals who need to cut back smoking, because it infuses a cool, minty sensation that usually appeals to younger people who smoke and masks the harshness of tobacco. Research have proven that the merchandise have been marketed closely to Black folks.
Carol McGruder, the co-chairwoman of the African American Tobacco Management Management Council and a supporter of the state legislation, mentioned the brand new advertisements didn’t shock her.
“It’s racist, predatory advertising and marketing,” Ms. McGruder mentioned. She added that public well being officers have been continuously having to react to the tobacco corporations’ techniques, “as they attempt to keep alive — utilizing addicted, lifelong clients.”
Fliers for the brand new merchandise have been mailed to Reynolds’s clients who had sought coupons. They embrace advertisements for “new” Camel and Newport varieties with “daring, lasting taste.” The corporate’s data of substances present that the Camel Crisp and the Newport EXP variations comprise an artificial cooling agent known as WS-3, in response to Sven Jordt, a Duke College researcher who has written in regards to the compound in e-cigarettes.
Dr. Jordt mentioned that the chemical had a cooling impact however not a minty odor or taste, and that the well being results of the additive have been unknown. Whereas different nations have banned flavored tobacco or menthol, he mentioned, solely Germany and Belgium have prohibited this explicit additive.
Mr. Pinto, of Reynolds, mentioned the cigarettes with the cooling agent “will not be topic to the lately enacted ban as a result of they don’t have a distinguishable style or aroma apart from tobacco.”
A spokesman for Altria, which sells Marlboro cigarettes, mentioned the corporate had stopped promoting menthol cigarettes in California and was in compliance with the brand new legislation.
Worldwide, tobacco corporations have found loopholes to bans on menthol or flavored tobacco, research present. In Canada, taste playing cards and additive drops have been used to complement unflavored merchandise. In Denmark, people who smoke now have entry to menthol sprays, capsules and tubes.
Drafters of the California legislation had the worldwide expertise in thoughts, by outlawing taste equipment and any claims that promote a flavored product. To Dr. Pamela Ling, the director of the Middle for Tobacco Management Analysis and Schooling on the College of California San Francisco, the message is evident.
“If you happen to squint on the advertisements, you’re going to see this as a flavorful product, whether or not it says it or not,” Dr. Ling mentioned. “The colours, the packaging, the associations that your mind makes with the feel and appear — that overrides the textual content that claims this isn’t menthol.”
Commercials and packaging that so vividly recommend a taste put a transparent onus on California officers to answer Reynolds, mentioned Matt Myers, the president of the Marketing campaign for Tobacco-Free Children.
“That is Reynolds mainly difficult California to say, ‘I don’t suppose you’re severe,’” Mr. Myers mentioned. If the state fails to take decisive motion, he added, “the business as soon as once more will escape.”
The merchandise being marketed as “new” additionally seem to problem the authority of the F.D.A., in response to Micah Berman, an affiliate professor of public well being and legislation at Ohio State College. Beneath the Tobacco Management Act, merchandise launched after 2007 should be cleared by the company, partly to maintain tobacco corporations from innovating to intensify the attraction of their merchandise.
“I feel that is one thing the F.D.A. ought to return and check out,” Mr. Berman mentioned.
Whether or not the merchandise have been cleared — and if they’re “new,” as marketed — is troublesome for F.D.A. officers to right away decide. That’s as a result of a 2016 authorized defeat for the company permits cigarette corporations to alter a product’s title with out informing the F.D.A. To search out out which cigarette is in a selected package deal, the company sometimes investigates or inspects data in a producing facility, mentioned Mitch Zeller, the previous director of the F.D.A.’s tobacco division.
The company cleared one Camel product with an “various menthol” taste capsule in 2021. Reynolds declined to provide The Occasions the authorization data for the California non-menthol cigarettes.
Abigail Capobianco, a spokeswoman for the F.D.A., mentioned that the company carefully monitored compliance with federal tobacco legal guidelines and rules, and that it took corrective motion when violations had occurred. However she declined to touch upon the brand new merchandise in California. The company mentioned it was finalizing its menthol rule and would “not permit entities to subvert the intent” of the product commonplace.
California’s method to the merchandise can be an essential bellwether of how a nationwide menthol ban may play out, Dr. Ling mentioned.
Reynolds is “testing it out,” Dr. Ling mentioned. “In the event that they’re profitable in pulling this off in California, they’ll be completely ready to bypass a federal ban in every single place else.”
Adam Liptak contributed reporting.