A 2011 FDA advisory panel report, which was mandated under the 2009 law giving the agency the authority to regulate tobacco, made many of the same findings, and said that removing menthol cigarettes from the market would benefit public health and highlighted greater use among minorities, teenagers and low-income people
I think sometimes legislators dont think through the ways people can avoid these things as much. (The Department of Revenues chief economist, Kazim Ozyurt, made a similar point in a presentation before the Illegal Tobacco Commission in November: Tax avoidance appears to be unavoidable in general, one of his slides began, before detailing ways to mitigate it.) In this view, figuring out the right place to set a cigarette tax is less a matter of simply passing a law, and more about finding the right balance among public health, budget needs, and crime
The increased harshness will be disguised by using different additives that remove the smokers sensation of harshness
But that rule has been blocked by a federal court
It is, in fact, the same fallacy that allows authoritarian regimes to further extend the scope of their power over the people