Last day of sales of menthol cigarettes and non-track and trace products

The ban on the sale of menthol flavoured cigarettes will take effect tomorrow (20 May).

As there won’t be any transition period, today is the last day for retailers to sell any remaining stock.

The ban also applies to capsule, click on, click & roll, crushball or dual menthol cigarettes, but not to heated tobacco products or e-cigarette products.

While selling of cigarettes/RYO tobacco packaged together with flavoured filters or papers will be banned, retailers could sell flavoured filters and papers in the same transaction as tobacco products.

Menthol cigarettes accounts for almost 26 percent, or one in four, of all cigarettes sold in the UK, and a recent survey by consumer group Forest has shown that nearly three million smokers in the UK are unaware on the measure.

Simon Clark, director of Forest, said the ban is a “gross restriction on consumer choice that will do nothing to stop children smoking.”

“Evidence from Canada, where menthol cigarettes were first banned in 2015, suggests that the ban had no overall impact on youth smoking rates because younger smokers simply switched to non-menthol cigarettes,” he added.

Clark was responding to claims by the anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) that the ban on “child-friendly” menthol cigarettes is “long overdue.”

“Menthol cigarettes are a child-friendly starter product because menthol makes it easier to smoke and to inhale the smoke deep into the lungs. Menthol smokers are also more likely to become heavily addicted and find it harder to quit,” Deborah Arnott, chief executive of ASH, commented today, welcoming the ban.

“The ban on menthol is long overdue, all other cigarette flavourings became illegal three years ago.”

Clark alleged that the ban will only help the black market to thrive.

“Many adults have smoked menthol-flavoured cigarettes for decades. This week that small pleasure will be taken away from them and the only people who will benefit are the criminals who supply the black market with illegal and counterfeit goods,” he said.

In another regulatory change, the sell through period for tobacco track and trace will end tomorrow.

Retailers must ensure that they have sold through cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco products that were produced before 20 May 2019, when the track and trace regulation came into force.

The measure has put in place a new method of tracking the sale of legitimate tobacco products through the supply chain.