Jared Walczak of the Tax Foundation writes about the unintended consequences of banning menthol cigarettes:
The latest target of policy-makers has been menthol cigarettes and other flavored combustible tobacco products. Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., have already enacted legislation prohibiting such products, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is set to announce a federal ban on them soon.
About 36 percent of smokers use menthol cigarettes, so a ban is no small thing.
If a menthol ban substantially reduces smoking, that would be bad news for government revenues but good news for public health. But if smokers simply substitute non-mentholated cigarettes, consumers will have fewer choices and the impact on both government finances and public health would be negligible. And if, as experience strongly suggests, many menthol smokers turned to smuggled products, everyone loses — except the smugglers.
Read the whole thing here.