The Takeaway:

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb formally announced today plans to ban menthol cigarettes and regulate other flavored e-cigarettes. We now think the FDA can finalize a menthol cigarette ban as soon as November / December 2020, which is roughly a year sooner than our prior projections. We are still skeptical that the FDA can actually implement a ban at this time due to likely litigation brought by the manufacturers. On e-cigarettes, we were surprised the FDA did not go further in its proposed e-cigarette regulations and instead created a regulatory framework that's bound to be easier for larger manufacturers to comply with than their smaller competitors.