According to new research, one in seven smokers in the UK are still using menthol cigarettes despite the flavour being banned in 2020, reports The Times.

A new study by the University College London that was published in the Tobacco Control journal looked at survey data from 67,000 UK adults and found that the 2020 ban had not had much of an effect in reducing the number of menthol smokers. While in October 2020 16 per cent of adult smokers were using menthol cigarettes, in May 2023 the number had only fallen slightly to 14 per cent.
The reason there has not been a significant drop in menthol cigarette users is down to the fact that tobacco firms have used “loopholes” in the law to sell legal alternatives such as menthol flavoured drops, which can be added to normal cigarettes, reports The Times.
The latest study shows that those smoking menthol cigarettes are not buying illegal products but rather using legal accessories including drops, filter balls or cards that are flavoured with menthol.
Dr Vera Buss, the study’s lead author, from the UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care, said: “Our results suggest the tobacco industry may have used various loopholes in the law to continue to enable people to smoke menthol-flavoured cigarettes. To effectively reduce the prevalence of menthol cigarette smoking to near zero, policymakers in the UK should consider closing current loopholes.”
Professor Jamie Brown, senior author, said: “The UK’s menthol ban does not appear to have been effective – we have found that there are still around one million people who report smoking menthol flavoured cigarettes in Britain, three years after the ‘ban’ came into force.”