One final thing. I was not aware, but a ban on menthol cigarettes went into effect in Massachusetts on July 1st. MO was asked about this in the earnings call. They obviously were against the ban, stating that FDA should be the entity regulating cigarettes, but stated that they don't think that a small state like Massachusetts will tell them much one way or another about the impact of menthol bans. I assume that means due to the small geographic size of the state, people can easily cross over into neighboring states and still buy them.
PM also took questions on menthol bans during their conference call. A EU ban went into effect back on May 20th. While PM initially stated that sales of HEETS could benefit since they are allowed to be sold in menthol variants, in the third quarter report they reported that most of the former EU menthol smokers just switched to smoking regular non-menthol cigarettes.
If that is what happens in the US, MO has little to fear from menthol bans, as they are underweighted to menthol in the US versus their competition (mostly Newport and KOOL).