Why it’s politically impossible to ban menthol cigarettes, even if they’re the most addictive.

"The fact that the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids negotiated this bill with Philip Morris has created a very strange situation," says Siegel. Tobacco-Free Kids currently lists 1,018 organizations that support the bill, but many independent public health experts like Siegel and Elizabeth Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health, believe political expedience has forged those alliances. Siegel told me that one part of the bill, which requires the FDA to regulate 4,000 individual chemicals in cigarettes' makeup, even as at least 6,000 other chemicals in cigarettes remain undiscovered and of unknown consequence, "flies in the face of science."

Continues Siegel: "Most health groups are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Philip Morris in lobbying for this legislation. [But] smaller companies are opposing it. The reason the small companies are standing in opposition is that the bill would essentially freeze current market share." Indeed, a statement by R.J. Reynolds says the bill would make it "virtually impossible for tobacco manufacturers to develop and introduce products that have the potential to reduce the risk of tobacco usage." As troubling as the menthol exemption is, the strangling of these alternative products, and of the competition to Philip Morris, is equally stunning.

Reynolds, in fact, recently rolled out a product developed in Sweden called Snus. The pouches of moist tobacco are sort of a spitless chew for smokers who don't want to go on the patch. While still a health risk, as a replacement for an addicted smoker, studies showed that snus are a "pathway from smoking," rather than, as menthols are, a gateway to it. That's because while menthols taste like a vaporized dinner mint, snus taste more like a "soggy cigarette," according to Forbes. In other words, the product isn't nearly as attractive to young people as it is to hard-core smokers who need their nicotine fix in nonsmoking environments. One study estimates that if all of Europe switched from smokes to Swedish snus, 200,000 fewer people a year would die of lung cancer there.

Then there are electronic cigarettes, tobaccoless sticks that dispense nicotine vapor. These gadgets are already under FDA scrutiny, even though the associated health risks compared to snus are thought to be slimmer still. Anecdotal stories about the novel devices show people are successfully quitting smoking while using them. The smoking bill would further empower the FDA to take action against these cigarette replacements, even though they use no tobacco and aren't made by cigarette manufacturers.

Yet the bill specifically denies the FDA the ability to require nicotine, the main addictive agent in cigarettes, to be eliminated from them. Siegel says: "The industry doesn't have to worry about nicotine being removed and therefore not being able to addict our nation's youth. The age of sale of tobacco cannot be increased. The places where tobacco is sold cannot be restricted. For Philip Morris, there is no longer any serious threat of competition from new, potentially safer, products." (Philip Morris, unlike its competitors, has focused new product development on cigars and chew, two products less affected by the legislation.)

The marketing and advertising restrictions in the bill also seem targeted primarily at Philip Morris' competitors. But even so, Philip Morris, with either towering disingenuousness or a wicked sense of humor, has signaled it will fight those very restrictions, which it used as a chip with legislators and the Campaign to get the bill written. With nary a mention of its role in co-writing the bill, a statement from the company called it "imperfect."