Menthol cigarette ban – what consumers need to know

In less than ten hours menthol cigarettes will be banned, prohibited, forbidden, verboten.

This is quite something. An entire category of cigarettes, 25 per cent of the UK fag market – will disappear overnight tonight.

Tomorrow, when you go into your local convenience store or supermarket, they will no longer be available.

Judging by my inbox over the last few weeks there has been some confusion concerning the ban, not helped by reports that implied that, in addition to menthol cigarettes, rolling tobacco and ‘skinny’ cigarettes were also going to be outlawed.

I’m not sure whether it was accidental or a deliberate attempt by tobacco control to confuse, but reports at New Year claimed:

Since then pretty much the same report has reappeared online in a series of waves - in March, and again this month.

Almost every report features a quote by Hazel Cheeseman or Deborah Arnott of ASH, sometimes both.

We’ve been monitoring them and I’ve lost count of the number that have appeared on national and local newspaper website, often more than once.

While monitoring them I’ve yet to see a single comment from an opponent of the ban. This is despite the fact that Forest has been systematically sending out our own response, often targeting the journalists whose by-line appears on the ASH-centred reports.

If I didn’t know better I’d guess that these were promotional, paid for reports because why else would virtually the same reports reappear, months apart, with not one featuring an opposing quote.

The law of averages alone suggests that at least one journalist would deign to ‘balance’ their report with an opposing comment but it has never happened.

If these are promotional ‘stories’ I’d love to know how much they cost and who paid for them.

Anyway, hats off to ASH - as propaganda goes, a good job well done!

The absence this week of any national reports of the ban (by which I mean the national print and broadcast media) has surprised me a bit because I thought it would attract some attention.

I know we’re in the middle of a coronavirus, and I know the actual legislation was passed several years ago, and the media circus invariably moves on.

Nevertheless we are talking about the eradication of a product that has been purchased and enjoyed by millions of smokers for more than 80 years.

(The history of menthol cigarettes is quite interesting. You can read more about it here.)

There are conflicting reports about how many people smoke menthol cigarettes in the UK. A 2018 study suggested that 12 per cent of smokers smoke menthols while the tobacco industry says one in four cigarettes sold in the UK are menthol or capsule cigarettes.

Capsule filters were a rather clever invention. I tried one (for research purposes!) a few years ago (and, no, I didn’t become addicted) and it worked extremely well.

I’m surprised by the number of smokers who have never heard of them. Only last week I had to explain to an elderly smoker - a member of the Friends of Forest Facebook group - what a capsule cigarette is (or was).

Basically, you press a button on the filter and it releases the flavour of menthol into the cigarette. There is a noticeable difference in taste and I found it rather enjoyable.

Then again, I’ve always liked the flavour of menthol cigarettes. When I was in sixth form at school in St Andrews a friend of mine used to smoke them and I would (very) occasionally smoke one of his and I quite liked it.

It never encouraged me to become a smoker, though, probably because my parents disapproved of children smoking.

I remember arriving home from school one day and my mother was convinced I’d been smoking. I reassured her that I hadn’t and that the smell of tobacco smoke on my clothes was the result of sitting on the top deck of the school bus!

Also, I didn’t enjoy smoking enough to spend what little money I had on cigarettes. When I went to university I spent it on alcohol instead.

Anyway, back to the confusion, deliberate or otherwise, that has been planted in people’s minds.

At one point I had several people running around, searching the internet for government documents in Westminster and Brussels that would confirm what was banned under the Tobacco Products Directive, and what wasn’t.

You have no idea how difficult it was. For example, we’re told that ‘slim’ or ‘skinny’ cigarettes are banned.

As far as I can tell, that’s not the case. That idea was rejected but ‘slim’ and ‘lipstick’ packs were banned instead. I suppose that’s a de facto ban but at risk of being pedantic it’s not true to say that ‘slim ‘ cigarettes are prohibited.

And what about rolling tobacco with ‘characterising flavours’?

I was told that flavoured-rolling tobacco was banned in 2017 but then I discovered numerous online retailers selling ... flavoured tobacco. And not just menthol.

Why the confusion?

I’m not a conspiracy theorist but it does seem to me that any confusion helps the anti-smoking industry because if consumers are unsure what they can (or cannot) legally buy, most will err on the side of caution and the market will fall away.

To be clear, from tomorrow the sale of flavoured rolling tobacco will definitely be illegal - if it wasn’t already - but non-flavoured rolling tobacco, the sort overwhelming used by smokers who prefer rollies (or can’t afford to buy factory made cigarettes) will still be legal.

This should absolutely clear to consumers but you’d be surprised how many smokers have asked us whether all hand-rolling tobacco will be banned.

The reason this has happened is because of all those ambiguous reports that have appeared online since the turn of the year.

There has been no government awareness campaign (a Populus poll for Forest revealed that almost 40 per cent of smokers were unaware of the ban) and therefore no clarification of the new regulations.

The tobacco industry is prevented from engaging with consumers and has therefore focused on getting the message out via retailers and trade publications. Several tobacco companies have launched micro-sites on the subject but, again, they are restricted in what they can do in terms of promotion.

In terms of neutral information, perhaps the clearest is provided by the Association of Convenience Stores, but inevitably much of it is targeted at retailers not consumers.

In view of all that, Forest has created its own guide, 'Menthol Cigarette Ban: What Consumers Need To Know'.

I hope it’s clear but it wasn’t as easy to write as I thought it would be. You can download it here.

Join the conversation - an invitation to Mark Pritchard MP

This evening we are hosting Forest’s second Zoom meeting, or webinar.

There’s nothing formal about it. It’s meant to replicate a pub-style chat (bring your own drink!), albeit with the benefit of a mute button.

The first one, three weeks ago, attracted 33 guests from all parts of the UK and beyond and went quite well. Tonight’s registered guests include participants from Australia, the USA and the Philippines.

We’ve invited the IEA’s Chris Snowdon to say a few words and answer questions. Topics will include the menthol cigarette ban and the call by Conservative MP Mark Pritchard for restrictions on smoking outside pubs and cafes when the current lockdown rules are eased.

With that in mind, I emailed the MP for The Wrekin last Thursday (9.57am) inviting him to join the conversation. My polite (even friendly) email read:

Dear Mr Pritchard,

Forest Zoom meeting, Tuesday 19th May, 6.00pm

We were interested to read your proposal for restrictions on smoking in outdoor areas outside pubs and cafes when the government eases the current lockdown on the hospitality industry.

You may have seen our response in the Shropshire Star.

Next Tuesday, 19th May, at 6.00pm we are hosting our second online meeting on Zoom. The first attracted 33 guests online and we are hoping for a similar number next week.

The aim is to create a pub chat style event around two principal issues – the menthol cigarette ban that comes into force on Wed 20th May, and your proposal.

We have invited Chris Snowdon, head of the Lifestyle Economics Unit at the IEA, to say a few words about the menthol ban, and we would like to invite you to be our other special guest to explain the reasons for your proposal and take questions.

Our supporters are generally pretty polite although strong feelings may be expressed. However, we have control of the mute button so only one person at a time will be able to speak to this will help moderate the debate!

We would be delighted if you would join us. You don't have to be present for the full hour (6.00-7.00pm). If you could join us for 20 minutes that would be perfect. As I say, we would invite you to speak for 3-4 mins, then take questions.

I look forward to hearing from you. If you would like to have a chat on the phone you can call me on [number].

Kind regards,

Simon Clark
Director, Forest

That was five days ago. I’m still waiting for a response.

Since then I have rung the constituency office which was closed, understandably, although one might have thought callers could leave a message.

Instead a voice message invited callers to ring the MP’s Westminster office, which implied that someone in London was taking calls. I have rung the number four or five times, at different times and on different working days, and every time I got another answering machine.

On Friday and again yesterday I left a message. No response.

How hard should it be to contact a member of Parliament even during lockdown?

They are supposed to be working, after all, and they were apparently offered an extra £10,000 each to pay for additional office costs so staff could work from home, so I don't understand why someone isn't available to answer calls at least.

If no-one is physically present in the London or constituency offices why are calls to the landline numbers not automatically redirected so they can be answered by members of staff working from home?

Big assumption, but let’s imagine that Mark Pritchard has seen my invitation. Having called for smoking to be restricted outside pubs and cafes in the event of lockdown regulations being eased, why won’t he engage with the very people who will be most affected?

I appreciate that he is not my constituency MP and I accept that constituents should get priority, but it was Mark Pritchard who decided to make an issue of smoking outside pubs and cafes and that’s a national issue, not a local one. He should therefore be willing to engage with non-constituents on the matter.

What I really object to though is the fact that for four working days (including today) it has been impossible to speak to any member of Mark Pritchard’s staff because no-one is answering the phone. Nor has anyone bothered to reply to the messages I have left.

And to think that we, the public, pay these people’s salaries!

PS. A few minutes ago, at 11.00am, I rang Mark Pritchard's Westminster office for the fourth working day in a row. Straight to answer phone.

This time I didn't bother leaving a message. I posted this instead.

Why Brexit couldn't save menthol cigarettes from prohibition

I have written an article for Brexit-Watch, the website edited by former MEP Brian Monteith. It begins:

Imagine you have been buying and enjoying the same product every day for 40 years or more. Imagine that product brought you pleasure and comfort in good times and bad. How would you feel if you were to visit your local convenience store or supermarket only to be told, "Sorry, we don’t sell that any more. The government has banned it.”

Yet that is the prospect facing hundreds of thousands of smokers this week. According to a poll conducted by Populus for the smokers’ group Forest, almost 40 per cent of smokers are unaware that on Wednesday 20th May it will no longer be legal for retailers to sell menthol cigarettes in the UK.

Those hardest hit will of course be law-abiding consumers whose freedom of choice will overnight be restricted by a regulation passed by the European Parliament without proper scrutiny from our own politicians in Westminster.

The gist of the article however is that even if the UK was free of EU regulations (we’re not) there was never any chance of the UK government reversing this unnecessary and spiteful measure.

After all, successive UK governments have taken great pleasure in going further and faster on tobacco control than any EU member state bar Ireland.

If that's not depressing enough and you can bear to read the rest of the article, click here.

Hockney blasts Britain’s ‘professional anti-smokers’

Woke up this morning to hear the Today programme talking about David Hockney.

The great man has accused the Guardian of refusing to publish a letter in which he wrote at length, and in positive terms, about smoking.

To be fair to the paper it is long but that’s not the reason they haven’t published it.

According a spokesman, “We receive hundreds of letters a day and cannot publish them all. However, we are not aware of recently receiving a letter from David Hockney.”

Anyway, the Mail has done us all a favour by publishing an edited version and I’m sure you’d like to read it.

Here are some excerpts:

I will be 83 in two months. I walk a bit slower, rarely exercise and have never been to a gym in my life, but I am very active and have already made 85 iPad drawings depicting the arrival of spring in our large garden. Now we have Covid-19, and surprise, surprise, a lot of reports are coming out saying that smokers rarely get it. Could there be something in this?

Well, the only time I had the flu was 1969, the year I didn't smoke. I thought I was dying and I was in bed for a week in New York. I suspect the leader of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) may have something to say about all this. I do not know her but I expect she is a mean-spirited bossy-boots obsessed with death. There are lots of them in England and they seem to be running everything today ...

Now let's get back to the people who don't like smoking. Well, they have now triumphed, smoking cannot be tolerated. A large percentage of the people who smoked went to pubs for a smoke and a drink. I don't have to say that pubs aren't health clubs, do I? But why not have pubs that allow smokers? They do in Germany and Austria, but the mean-spirited bossy dreary people won't tolerate this here.

Britain used to be a tolerant place. To tolerate something is to put up with something you might not like. This is now gone for smokers. The British medical establishment believes it will be win, win, win. They also cannot understand that time is elastic. It is the intensity of life that counts, not longevity.

He also writes:

There is no such thing as a professional smoker but there are a few thousand professional anti-smokers all funded by the smokers themselves. It's a ridiculous situation that I resent.

To read the edited letter in full, click here and scroll down.

Below: David Hockney with Sir Greg Knight MP at a reception organised by Forest at the House of Commons in 2011

Petty attack on convenience and pleasure

I have just finished writing an article, to be published tomorrow, about the menthol cigarette ban.

It was a bit long and this section didn't really fit so I took it out. The point I wanted to make, though, was this:

There’s a pettiness about the ban on the sale of menthol-flavoured tobacco products that says a lot about the regulators behind it. Following the ban it will still be legal for retailers to sell menthol-flavoured filters and papers in the same transaction as non-flavoured rolling tobacco, but not packaged together.

This may seem a very minor issue, hardly worth complaining about, but the Tobacco Products Directive is not just an attack on consumer choice, it’s an attack on convenience. This is what we mean when some of us talk about ‘creeping prohibition’.

Baby steps, for sure, but the direction of travel is clear. Prohibition, in the modern sense, is just not about banning things. It’s also about inconveniencing people to the extent that they may quit rather than continue their habit.

Some might say this is merely 'nudging' people to change their behaviour. I disagree.

Like the ban on cigarette vending machines, I think it's a deliberately spiteful act designed to make some people's lives just that little bit more difficult than it has to be.

The ban on menthol cigarettes is also an attack on pleasure. Sure there are alternatives – which I will list in another post – but the reality is that people have smoked menthol-flavoured cigarettes for decades because they prefer the taste.

This week that small pleasure will be taken away from them and the sad thing is, very few people seem bothered.

On this day, 2019

Is it really a year since this event?

Afterwards we enjoyed a very boozy dinner at a local Italian restaurant.

I'm ashamed to say that when I woke up in my hotel room the following morning I couldn't remember how I got there.

Phil May, RIP

Sorry to hear that Phil May, founder of the Pretty Things, has died.

Phil attended Forest’s Revolt In Style dinner at the Savoy Hotel in London shortly before the introduction of the smoking ban in 2007.

A few days earlier he had launched a campaign, All Light Up, to protest against the ban. Visitors to the website could download flyers, posters and a Pretty Things’ track, 'All Light Up', which was described as a ‘freedom of choice anthem’:

Play it loud and clear for all to hear, wherever you go. At home. In the car. In clubs and pubs. At work. And tell your friends to do the same!"

To put this in perspective, the Pretty Things had ‘history’. As this 2015 article explains:

The Pretty Things were the creation of original Rolling Stones guitarist Dick Taylor (who was Bill Wyman's predecessor) and the band were arguably the world's first “garage band”. Amongst the many citing them as a major influence are the Ramones, Iggy Pop, the Sex Pistols, Nirvana, The Libertines and the Who - Pete Townshend once said the 'S.F. Sorrow' rock opera by the Pretty Things was the model for 'Tommy'.

The band were also very heavily into drugs earlier than most others and were the target of the first rock drugs bust. On one occasion they were stopped by police in Brian Jones's Bentley with Judy Garland and Rudolph Nureyev also aboard. They were also banned for life from visiting Australia and New Zealand after causing a fire on an aeroplane.

Like many people my age I was aware of the band but it was a surprise, in 2007, to discover that they were still playing and recording.

A few weeks after the Savoy event I was contacted by the band’s manager and former drummer Mark St John. He wanted to talk about the ‘All Light Up’ campaign.

We met for breakfast at the Troubadour coffee house in Old Brompton Road, a venue with even more history than the Pretty Things:

Through the 50’s and 60’s this was one of the centres of London intellectual and artistic life. It’s where Private Eye was first produced and distributed; where the early Ban the Bomb meetings were held (the precursor to CND); and where the Black Panthers met when they left Paris after the ’68 riots. 

The Troubadour was the first place where Bob Dylan performed in London. Paul Simon, Martin Carthy, Redd Sullivan, Charlie Watts, Sammy Davis Jr and Jimi Hendrix have all played here. 

‘All Light Up', Mark told me, was part of a broader defence of civil liberties. How broad that was I never found out because the campaign soon fizzled out.

Years later however I read that apart from the chorus ‘All Light Up’ wasn’t really about smoking at all.

Interviewed by Jason Barnard for The Strange Brew, band members Frank Holland and Dick Taylor were asked about it:

Jason – Frank, one of my favourite Pretty Things tracks is the ‘All Light Up’ single from the Latest Writs compilation and Balboa Island album. You were involved in its writing.

Frank – I came up with the rhythm and the riff. Mark St John our manager came up with the idea as we needed a hook. He went “All Light Up!” Phil said “What? All right now!” [laughs] So it became “All Light Up”. Phil constructed some lyrics around that. It’s not really a pro-smoking song but the chorus is.

As a postscript the Pretty Things’ website adds:

Lead singer Phil May had taken on a one man crusade against the UK’s smoking ban ... his personal website ‘All Light Up’ was set up because “someone from rock & roll has got to stand up against this shitty piece of legislation, it may as well be me ...”

Predictably the effect on the smoking ban was nil, and the effect on the BBC’s fabled playlist was predictable ... Bye bye ‘All Light Up’ – Ho Hum!

Phil May, RIP.

Talking Liberties: round two

Forest's first Zoom meeting attracted 33 guests.

Our second online event takes place on Tuesday, May 19, from 6.00-7.00pm.

Chaired by Rob Lyons, author of 'Prohibition: A bad idea that won't go away', our special guest is Chris Snowdon, head of the Lifestyle Economics Unit at the Institute of Economic Affairs.

Chris and I will answer questions but the aim of these events is to generate an informal pub style chat so we will do our best to include everyone who has something to say. (If you just want to watch or listen that's fine too.)

If you smoke menthol cigarettes tell us what you'll miss and how you'll adapt to the ban which comes into force a few hours after the meeting. We'll discuss some of the alternatives including infusion cards, menthol cigarillos, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco.

We'll also talk about the letter Mark Pritchard MP has written to Health Secretary Matt Hancock, urging the government to introduce new restrictions on smoking outside pubs and cafes with outdoor seating if and when lockdown restrictions are lifted.

To join us please register in advance. Email events@forestonline.org.