WTO dents U.S. ban on clove cigarettes
Harmon said the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office was examining its options for complying with the ruling.
If the ban remains, Indonesia could impose retaliatory duties on the U.S. exports equal to the amount of trade it has lost, which one analyst estimated at about $16 million per year.
The United States could also comply by offering Indonesia new trade concessions, as it has done in some other disputes where Congress was unwilling to change the law.
More than 80 percent of black smokers use menthol cigarettes, compared with 24 percent of white smokers. More than 47,000 black Americans die each year from smoking-related diseases. More black women get lung cancer than get breast cancer, and black men are 50 percent more likely to get lung cancer than white men are.
Lorillard (maker of Newport, Kent and others) and R.J. Reynolds have gone to court to block the FDA from considering the committee’s report. They allege that the membership of the committee “lacks fair balance.” That the tobacco companies would question the integrity of committee members after having been found by a U.S. district judge to have lied to the American public for 50 years about the health hazards of smoking is beyond chutzpah.
The FDA response to the committee’s recommendation will be a test of the Obama administration’s commitment to health care and reducing its costs. In the Tobacco Control Act, Congress found: “Reducing the use of tobacco by minors by 50 percent would prevent well over 10 million of today’s children from becoming regular, daily smokers,” and “Such a reduction in youth smoking would also result in approximately $75 billion in savings attributable to reduced health care costs.”
A ban on menthol flavoring in cigarettes would be a slam-dunk for an administration that trumpets its commitment to cutting health-care costs and protecting children.
Joseph A. Califano Jr. is founder and chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. He was secretary of health, education and welfare during the Carter administration. Louis W. Sullivan is president emeritus of the Morehouse School of Medicine. He was secretary of health and human services under President George H.W. Bush.
Myers urged the Food and Drug Administration to ban menthol cigarettes, noting a scientific advisory committee created by the 2009 law had recommended that more than a year ago.
“The FDA has had more than enough time to determine how to implement the committee’s recommendation,” Myers said. “It is time for the FDA to act.”
That would affect cigarette makers Lorillard Inc, the Philip Morris USA unit of Altria Group, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. unit of Reynolds American Inc, and Liggett Vector Brands LLC.
Mark McMinimy, a senior policy analyst with Guggenheim Securities, said in a research note that he doubted the Obama administration would take that step.
U.S. trade officials made “forceful arguments” against a ban on menthol cigarettes in their WTO appeal, he said.
It is unlikely the FDA would ban or phase out menthol cigarettes without “the emergence of new and compelling information that indicts this product as a special menace to public health,” McMinimy said.
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By Tom Miles and Doug Palmer