THREAD: If menthol is exempted from a flavor ban on e-cigs, Juul will immediately re-name their candy mint flavor (the top flavor preferred by kids) to "menthol plus" and sell it as a menthol. This is why I believe their parent company, Altria, is said to want the exemption...
... Juul is the only company with a mass market "mint" flavor. The company has already said on multiple occasions that it considers its candy mint flavor to be a menthol flavor because it has trace levels of menthol in it ....
James Monsees, July 25th House Oversight: Q: And mint is a flavor, obviously; A: Mint is a menthol-based product intended to appeal to consumers that are using menthol-based cigarettes. Q: And it’s a menthol-based flavor, correct? A: It is a menthol-based flavor, that’s correct.
"Juul also has had internal discussions on renaming its popular mint-flavored pods to a menthol variant as part of that application, the people said." wsj.com/articles/juul-…
“For menthol-based products, including mint, we believe that to encourage adult smokers to switch from combustible use — the No. 1 cause of preventable death in the world — they should be available at retail...” a Juul spokesman said. nypost.com/2019/09/11/juu…
Under commercial speech FDA most likely lacks authority to prevent Altria/Juul from renaming its candy mint as menthol. This is why Altria/Juul will uniquely benefit from a menthol carve out. Such an exemption does nothing to help the adult vape shops. It benefits Altria/Juul.
The March 2019 policy to restrict the sale of flavored e-cigs in convenience stores, but allow them in adult only vape shops, was aimed at preserving the adult segment for adult smokers seeking to quit, while taking products most widely used by kids out of the leakiest channel...
Restricting flavors in adult vape stores only to leave Altria/Juul's candy mint flavor in convenience stores can have the opposite effect; and run the risk of disadvantaging adult smokers only to leave the most attractive kid flavor inside the channel most accessible to children
A key new learning is the 2019 NYTS which showed that kids are now switching to mint. This data affirms that mint is, in the end, a candy flavor. Discussions with retailers confirms this trend. The only way to ban mint is to also ban menthol in the pod based e-cigs that kids use.
For this reason, I long held that if the 2019 NYTS continued to show an increase in kids use of e-cigs, we should consider removing from market all of the pod (cartridge) based e-cigs as a class. These are the cheap, disposable products that are most widely used by kids. 
This is my opinion on how the market for mint products would evolve if menthol was exempted from a policy affecting the pod products; leaving kids vulnerable to the kinds of flavors that appear to be the mostly widely abused among children.
One alternative to the task of trying to carve around flavors in a “flavor ban” is to remove ALL the pod e-cigs as a category and leave the open tank vapes on the market in ADULT ONLY stores. The classes of products can be distinguished in regulation or guidance based on features
2019 NYTS specifically asked what brands kids use. While that data hasn’t been released yet, all available public data suggests kids are largely if not almost entirely using cartridge products — primarily Juul, also on a much lesser basis Vuse, Blue, NJOY, etc.
