The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may have banned fruit flavored cigarettes but some health experts expressed concern over the exclusion of banning mentholated cigarettes. The ban was to keep the teens away from smoking.

Mentholated cigarettes is already a top selling flavor with teens and now with the banning of other candy and fruit flavors it is increasingly becoming popular.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act required the FDA to create Tobacco Products Advisory Committee, which is required to answer questions like- 'the impact of the use of menthol in cigarettes on the public health'.

There has been an overall decline in teen smoking but the number of teens smoking mentholated cigarettes has risen 17.5 percent from 2000-2002. These figures were released by the American Legacy Foundation created as a result of the 1998 settlement between state attorneys general and the tobacco industry.

The study in 2002 found that 60 percent of middle school smokers smoked menthol. Scientist James Hersey with RTI International, an independent research institute in Washington, D. C. says, "I think menthol is easier to smoke, so kids will often start with menthol".