The Health 202: The FDA has until Thursday to respond to demands to ban menthol cigarettes
Alexandra Ellerbeck
with Paige Winfield Cunningham
It’s been a dozen years since Congress gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate the contents of cigarettes. So far, the agency has never used it.
But that could change this week.
The FDA has until Thursday to respond to a petition demanding a ban on menthol cigarettes. Past efforts to ban them have failed, but advocates say this time may be different and could even be the start of more aggressive tobacco regulation by the government.