Cigarette menthol levels manipulated?

WASHINGTON — Tobacco companies deliberately changed the menthol levels in cigarettes depending upon whom they were marketing them to — lower levels for young smokers who preferred the milder brands and higher levels to "lock in lifelong adult smokers," researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health concluded.

Their finding is based on a review of more than 500 internal tobacco-industry documents from 1985 through 2007.

Researchers said the documents showed that tobacco companies studied how controlling levels of menthol could increase brand sales. They concluded new and young smokers liked mild menthol that masked the harshness of tobacco smoke. Veteran smokers, the companies are said to have concluded, favored stronger doses of menthol for its cooling effects on their throats.

The findings come as Congress weighs whether to grant the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco products, including additives, at the national level. The bill would allow the FDA to ban all cigarette flavorings except menthol. If FDA tests of menthol showed it added to the health risks of smoking, the agency could ban menthol, too.

No conclusive evidence shows menthol cigarettes to be more harmful than conventional ones, said Terry Pechacek, the associate director of the Office of Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Pechacek said there was evidence that menthol smokers had a harder time quitting.

Menthol has proven appeal to young people and is popular among African-American smokers, two-thirds or more of whom smoke mentholated brands, according to Gregory Connolly, a co-author of the report and the director of Harvard's Tobacco Control Research Program.

According to the program's lab tests of menthol concentrations in cigarettes since 2000, menthol went down in brands the young preferred and went up in brands that were aimed at older smokers.

According to the Harvard researchers' report, the "rapid introduction" of new milder menthol brands violates a provision in the Master Settlement Agreement of 1998 between tobacco companies and state governments that prohibits them from targeting youths.