Smoking Quit Rates among Menthol vs Non-menthol Smokers: Implications Regarding a US Ban on the Sale
Tuesday, May 24, 2022
Posted by: Natalia Gromov
Munro HM, Shrubsole MJ,
Zheng W, Wen W, Blot WJ.
Smoking Quit Rates among
Menthol vs Non-menthol Smokers: Implications Regarding a US Ban on the Sale of
Menthol Cigarettes.
[published online ahead of print, 2022 Apr 21]. J Natl Cancer Inst.
2022;djac070. doi:10.1093/jnci/djac070
Background. A
ban on the sale of menthol cigarettes in the United States is currently under
consideration. A justification is that menthol cigarettes are harder to quit,
particularly for African American smokers who use menthols much more frequently
than White smokers, but epidemiologic data are limited.
Methods. In
a cohort of 16,425 mostly low income African American and White current
cigarette smokers enrolled during 2002-2009, we computed smoking quit and
re-uptake rates at three follow ups conducted means of 4.6, 7.7 and 11 years
after entry. Generalized estimation equations were used to compute odds ratios
(OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for quitting and resuming smoking for menthol
vs non-menthol smokers adjusted for race, age, education, income, and smoking
pack years.
Results. Crude
annual quit rates among current smokers were 4.3% for menthol and 4.5% for
non-menthol smokers, with adjusted ORs of quitting for menthol vs non-menthol
smokers of 1.01 (95% CI = 0.91-1.11) overall, 0.99 (95% CI = 0.87-1.12) among
African American and 1.02 (95% CI = 0.88-1.20) among White smokers. Crude
annual smoking re-uptake rates were somewhat higher among menthol (8.4%) than
non-menthol smokers (7.1%), with an adjusted OR of 1.19 (95% CI = 0.97-1.47),
but net quit rates remained similar (OR = 1.01 [95% CI = 0.90-1.13] overall; OR
= 1.00 [95% CI = 0.86-1.15] among African American participants; and OR = 1.04
[95% CI = 0.87-1.24] among White participants).
Conclusions. This
large-scale prospective survey revealed similar quit rates among menthol and
non-menthol smokers. Results contribute to policy discussions, especially if,
as a meta analysis suggests, lung cancer risk is higher for non-menthol smokers
and a ban leads menthol smokers to switch to non-menthol cigarettes.
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