Please don't take away my menthol cigarettes, Brussels Borg

Like many smokers, I am actually supportive of some of the restrictions put upon our noxious activity. I'm all in favour of the smoking ban in pubs because it means I can easily extricate myself from tedious people and hang out with the cool kids outside. Even generic packaging should lead to an upsurge in cigarette cases, which is the kind of accessorising I approve of. But the faceless Brussels anti-cancer bureaucrats have gone too far now. The health commissioner, Tonio Borg, has threatened to ban cigarettes with a "characterising flavour" such as menthol, strawberry or vanilla, on the grounds that they encourage young people to start smoking. The Borg went on to say: "If it's tobacco, it should look like tobacco and taste like tobacco." This can only come from a man who has never smoked menthol cigarettes. There are many reasons why menthols became my fag of choice. Primarily it's because I like to freshen my breath as I smoke. Menthol flavouring rarely takes away the taste of tobacco, rather it augments the taste with a chemical, metallic overtone akin to inhaling a lit screwdriver. It would be a "learner's" cigarette only if you intended to go on to smoke tool bags. If they ban the minty ciggy that means I'm going to have to find something else to make up my five a day. They clearly count as a vegetable: not only is mint a plant, but the packets have green on them. This is also why they work particularly well with roast lamb and mojitos. Of course they have long been advertised as a "healthy alternative" or as "medicinal" for colds. You would have to be very bunged up to consider cancer as preferable but at least they're better than nasal spray. In the US, menthol smokes are particularly popular among African-American parts of the population, which led a number of representative organisations to oppose menthol cigarette bans – they argued that it would encourage an illicit market in the outlawed products in minority communities. Indeed, if you search for images of "menthol cigarette advertising", there are some amazing 1970s ads with resplendent afros. And I for one am willing to continue the fight against racism on all fronts, including access to a herby snout. By and large, menthol cigs are not considered cool. In the UK they are probably more associated with grannies or people who don't really like smoking. The only recent celebs to have been seen with menthols in public are Charlotte Church and Rachel Stevens. It doesn't really conjure up silky vapours curling round the face of Marlene Dietrich. At first this was something that I would feel affronted by until I realised that it actually stops people blagging tabs off me. People recoil in horror when I offer them a minty, as though I've suggested they take a rolled-up dog poo from my hand. Smoking kills – I know that. But if the Brussels Borg gets his way, I will still miss the much-maligned menthol puff: the unblemished snowy whiteness of its stem, the synthetic cooling sensation at the back of your throat, the incredulous looks or wistful sighing of people remembering the minty fags of years gone by. But then I could always slip a polo mint over the filter of a normal fag.