Tobacco: how manufacturers circumvent the ban on menthol to better attract consumers

A veil of fresh smoke hangs over the tobacco industry. “Do you have any menthol cigarettes?” “No, but we have “fresh” cigarettes that replace them.” This is what you can hear today in a tobacco shop. Menthol cigarettes, which stimulate oral receptors and reduce the smell of tobacco in the mouth to better attract the consumer, have been banned throughout the European Union since 2020. But manufacturers have managed to circumvent this legislation, and the authorities are struggling to answer to...

Flashback: In 2014, the European Parliament and Council banned “characterizing flavors” in cigarettes. Chocolate, vanilla or fruit flavors, which particularly appealed to young consumers, are no longer authorized; menthol gets a reprieve until 2020. But this notion of “characterizing aroma” is criticized, because Europe simply defines it as “a clearly identifiable smell or taste other than that of tobacco”. Industries have adapted and developed several strategies to circumvent the law, such as adding compounds which, like menthol, cause the sensation of freshness in the mouth without having the smell or taste of mint. This additive helps blur the taste of the cigarette, making it more pleasant. And the strategy is particularly effective among young people in making them addicted to tobacco. “When we ban something that generates turnover, manufacturers will look for something else that escapes regulation,” denounces the professor of addiction at the Timone hospital (AP-HM) Simon Nicolas.

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An American study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in October 2023 shows that “new freshness molecules have been found in American cigarettes”. The researchers extracted flavors from tobacco components and then injected them into cells expressing menthol receptors. In the presence of “freshness” substances, cells produce electrical signals which are recorded, thus making it possible to evaluate the “refreshing” power of the compound tested. And some compounds extracted from cigarettes have been found to have much greater cooling power than menthol.

"These results mean that these 'non-menthol' cigarettes produce effects similar to menthol when smoked, making it easier to inhale the other, more unpleasant components of tobacco smoke," Hanno Erythropel, head of tobacco smoke, said in a statement. one of the authors of the study. One of the new molecules found, WS-3, is particularly worrying because it has a greater cooling power than the reference product (used before the ban on menthol) and is toxic to rodents.

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Contacted by Le Figaro, the Health Security Agency (ANSES) did not wish to answer our questions, telling us that it “provides scientific and technical support to the ministry on these subjects”. However, it publishes on its website the compounds that tobacco manufacturers say they use to produce their cigarettes. The compound WS-3 appears in the list, under the title of "herbal smoking product" (while it is defined as a "synthetic compound" by American researchers), whose function is to be a “aroma and/or taste enhancer”. As for the General Directorate of Health (DGS), it recognizes the problem of cigarettes with the name "fresh", but specifies that the manufacturers have declared these compounds "in compliance with the legislation, insofar as the reduced contents of additives in the composition places them below the threshold of sensory detection, and therefore would not be “characterizing” aromas. Here again, this is contrary to what the results of the American study show, which points to a “strong sensory action of the compound WS-3”.

In its collective expert report from March 2022, ANSES, responsible for evaluating the effects of tobacco products on human health in France, highlights the difficulty of identifying the additive at the origin of a flavor characterizing, for several reasons. It is difficult to look for them in cigarettes because chemical analysis cannot differentiate an additive from the ingredients in a cigarette. ANSES therefore uses the composition information transmitted by the manufacturers. Thus, it considers in its opinion that “the sole regulation of additives constitutes a legal weakness and that this framework should be adapted to apply as much as possible to the ingredients, substances actually present in the finished product”. ANSES then recommends a chemical analysis program and the establishment of regulations by developing an updateable list of substances and families of substances to be banned. The DGS specifies that “given the involvement of several European countries, and the necessary exchanges which took place to consolidate the results of the analyzes carried out on these products, this procedure proved to be very long”...

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“In France, normally all tobacco products are declared to ANSES. In 2020, manufacturers circumvented the regulations prohibiting characterizing flavors but not menthol residues which are still authorized, a way of circumventing the ban,” declares Amélie Eschenbrenner, communications manager at the national committee against smoking (CNCT). However, these compounds come into play in the onset of addiction. Professor Simon Nicolas specifies that “certain additives potentiate the addictogenic effect of nicotine. In any addictogenic substance we distinguish two parameters, the hook and the speed of addiction. The hook causes pleasant sensations, the speed of addiction is the time taken by a substance to make the user dependent. The speed of addiction to cigarettes is lower than that of other drugs, so “the search for a quick hook is a lever allowing addiction to develop”. Menthol compounds allow this quick grip, and the addictologist indicates that “tobacco manufacturers are constantly looking for additives” with this effect.

Some countries have adapted their legislation. This is for example the case of Canada, which lists the compounds authorized in cigarettes. Nevertheless, here again manufacturers have undertaken to circumvent the law thanks to other strategies, such as menthol cards (a card to slide into the pack and which transmits an aroma to the cigarettes contained inside) or menthol balls (which we place in the filter after having pierced it). They are not subject to tobacco law... but offer the same minty or fruity taste banned for several years.