The announcements have been years in the making: On April 28, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced proposed rules for a ban on menthol cigarettes, after a recent announcement saying it would move forward on a menthol ban, following a previous announcement saying a menthol ban was imminent. [...] Explicitly, the proposed law would prohibit “menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes”—meaning that “a cigarette or any of its components or parts [...] shall not contain, as a constituent (including a smoke constituent) or additive, menthol that is a characterizing flavor of the tobacco product or tobacco smoke.”