The Gateway Cigarettes

Aaron Candlers says he likes to smoke Karelia cigarettes when he is stressed. If the Atlanta construction worker has a tough day on the job, he lights up. If he has a beef with the family, Candlers is puffing away.

And if his late model Ford Explorer breaks down on the Atlanta freeway, as it did recently, Candlers will be headed to the corner store to re-up on the nicotine sticks.

“It just died on me,” Candler says between long drags off a cigarette. “So I was like real stressed and I think I smoked half a pack of cigarettes waiting on the tow truck.”

Like about 19 million other Americans, Candlers smokes menthol cigarettes – for now. The Food and Drug Administration is currently considering whether to ban menthol from cigarettes. Candlers, a stocky man with a beard and a wide smile, says that would be a bad decision.

“They gonna have a war on their hands,” Candlers says of the FDA. “I know a lot of folks that smoke menthols, and it would be wrong just to ban one type of cigarette.”

But the U.S. government has already banned other types of cigarettes. Flavored beedies, cloves, cigarettes with spices, peppermint and vanilla have all been banned in an effort to discourage teenagers from picking up the habit. Basically, anything that makes tobacco easier to taste or inhale has been targeted by the FDA and Congress.

The FDA’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee is recommending menthol be banned. The committee issued a report earlier this year finding that menthol cigarettes are overwhelmingly smoked by the poor, the young and African-Americans.

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