Editorial: Big Tobacco uses menthol to lure younger smokers

Big Tobacco promised a decade ago to stop trying to hook callow and clean-lunged youths on its dangerous product. All the while, according to a recent report by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, the tobacco companies were engaged in "a deliberate strategy to recruit and addict young smokers by adjusting menthol to create a milder experience for the first-time smoker." ...

The tobacco industry created the secret campaign after learning that nearly half of smokers between the ages of 12 and 17 prefer menthol cigarettes. By easing them into the habit with mild menthol, there's a good chance to hook them for life. Menthol smokers may have a tougher time quitting because menthol intensifies the addictive effect of nicotine, some research indicates.

The companies executed the strategy by introducing mild menthol brands for new smokers and cranking up the menthol in other brands for veteran smokers, the report concluded. ...

They also know that if teens stopped smoking, the tobacco industry would soon be history. This study should spur Congress finally to vote on pending legislation giving the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco, including the use of additives such as menthol.

We wonder how tobacco executives can sleep at night, knowing that their menthol strategy is hooking countless youths, many of whom will eventually die of cancer, heart disease and other smoking-related ailments. The disgusting habit kills 400,000 Americans a year and is the leading cause of preventable death. ...

HARTFORD COURANT, JULY 28

A glaring absence Along with many readers, we were saddened to learn yesterday that, at least for a short while, we won't be receiving any columns from Robert D. Novak to publish on the opposite page. Mr. Novak has been writing a column since 1963 -- that's not a typo -- and, to our knowledge, he has never missed a deadline. He revealed Monday that he has a brain tumor. A lot of tests are yet to be completed, but in a statement, he said that he hopes his absence from the op-ed page will be for a "not too lengthy period." In the course of writing columns for more than 45 years ... Mr. Novak has picked up his share of detractors. ...

What we've noticed over the years is that Mr. Novak has never stopped reporting. Whether you agree with him or not, you can pretty much always learn something from his columns. Given that we've published, on rough calculation, more than 7,000 of those, that's a fair amount of fresh information and juicy disclosure.

Mr. Novak noted in his book that he had survived three cancers, with a possible fourth -- a growth on his kidney -- under medical observation. We hope his latest health challenge will quickly meet the fate of its predecessors.

WASHINGTON POST, JULY 29