The Food and Drug Administration’s is moving to ban the sale of menthol cigarettes, but the proposed ban has caused a divide in the Black community. Over the course of decades, tobacco companies directly targeted marketing of menthol cigarettes to Black consumers and in Black communities, which fostered an environment where today, the vast majority of Black smokers use the product.
“The net result of these predatory marketing strategies is the Black community is suffering unfairly and disproportionately from tobacco-related disease,” according to a statement from the Congressional Black Caucus Health Braintrust, a health care advisory task force for the caucus. Dr. Alan Blum, director of the University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society, said when it comes to Black people smoking menthols, “advertising works.” “If in Ebony and Jet and billboards and convenience stores the only brands you see advertised are menthol brands, there’s no mystery,” he said.
As USA Today reports, anti-smoking advocates and many in the medical community who support the ban have pointed out that smoking contributes to cancer, and studies show that African Americans are more likely to develop and die of lung cancer. However, on the other side, some Black clergy, law enforcement groups, and publications — many of whom have received money or advertisement revenue from the tobacco industry — say Black people have the choice to use mentholated products and that banning them could lead to negative interactions with police.
Tobacco companies began targeting Black consumers in the mid-1960s, chasing after a new urban market created by the Great Migration. They avoided scrutiny in part through lavish donations to Black civic organizations. In the spring of 1963, Black people represented 19% of the menthol cigarette market, historians and advocates said. Today, nearly 85% of Black smokers use menthol, compared to 30% of white smokers, the FDA said.
As of 2019, there were more than 18.5 million menthol cigarette smokers, according to the FDA. Between 1980 and 2018, menthol cigarettes were responsible for 157,000 premature deaths and 1.5 million life-years lost among Black people, according to a study from the University of Michigan.
Keith Wailoo, a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University in New Jersey, said the marketing of menthol products to Black people linked itself to Black identity and aspirations while seeking to avoid backlash from possible white consumers of the product. “It’s not that they (tobacco companies) are earnestly concerned with Black representation in advertisements,” he said. “They’re concerned with how the incorporation of Black imagery in ads can help with sales, but not to the extent that it alienates non-Black consumers.”
David Mendez, a lead author of the Michigan study and a health management and policy professor at the university, said menthol cigarettes reduce the irritation and harshness of smoking through their smooth, minty flavor profile. Because the cigarette user does not cough or feel the less healthy aspects of smoking, they are less inclined to quit, he said. Menthol also works with nicotine to enhance nicotine’s addictive effects. Banning menthol will save thousands of lives, Mendez said. “This is the closest we have been,” Mendez said of the proposed prohibition.
According to USA Today, the proposed FDA ban has seen some resistance from some tobacco companies and others. “We strongly believe that there are more effective routes to deliver tobacco harm reduction than banning menthol in cigarettes,” R.J. Reynolds said in a statement to a request for comment.
Diane Goldstein, executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, said banning menthols is another iteration of the war on drugs, which disproportionately has harmed Black people. LEAP is an organization comprised of prosecutors, judges, and law enforcement that advocates for criminal justice and drug policy reforms. “When we ban a substance, we don’t end its use,” she said. “We just shift those profits from licensed, taxpaying shopkeepers to criminal organizations, leading to easier access for children, unregulated and impure products for consumers, and unnecessary diversions from violent crime for police.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton said in a letter to Susan Rice, White House domestic policy advisor, that a menthol cigarette ban could mean that some economically disadvantaged smokers might try to create homemade menthol cigarettes. Sharpton’s organization has taken money from the tobacco industry.
In announcing the proposed ban, the FDA said it wouldn’t enforce the prohibition against individual users of menthol products. Instead, an implemented ban would focus its enforcement on retailers, distributors and others. “If these proposed rules are finalized and implemented, FDA enforcement will only address manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, importers and retailers who manufacture, distribute, or sell such products within the U.S. that are not in compliance with applicable requirements,” a statement read.
The FDA said banning menthol would help prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers and helps adult smokers quit. Anti-smoking organizations said the talking points of LEAP and some other Black organizations use Black anxieties around hostile police encounters to get around regulating the market.
Menthol cigarettes were created by Lloyd “Spud” Hughes in the 1920s when he mixed menthol and cigarettes. For the first few decades of the product’s existence, it was marketed as a “healthier cigarette.” Marketers started targeting ads specifically to Black consumers in the wake of the Great Migration in the 1960’s. They went to corner stores in Black neighborhoods to track the progress of cigarette sales. They asked workers why they had chosen to invest with a particular cigarette brand.
In St. Louis, the tobacco industry recognized that Black men didn’t watch television at the same levels as their white counterparts in the 1960s, according to “Pushing Cool: Big Tobacco, Racial Marketing, and the Untold Story of the Menthol Cigarette.” Through market research, consultants recognized Black consumers would listen to trusted sources in their community —- bellhops, barbers, etc. Consultants then secretly gave menthol cigarettes to those figures, who then started dispersing them in their communities, the book said. Segregation in cities such as Detroit, New York and Philadelphia also allowed tobacco companies to place ads in Black neighborhoods without fear of white backlash, historians say.
“When you put it all together, the tobacco industry has given literally millions of dollars to black, civic, religious, political, educational organizations in our community. So, it’s essentially been a full-court press,” said Phillip Gardiner, co-chair of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council, a California-based organization that supports a national menthol ban.
The public can submit comments on the proposed change through Aug. 2, according to the FDA.
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