Right now, the White House is in the final stages of considering rules to end the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars in the United States. As officials get closer to finalizing these rules, the tobacco industry is working hard to stop them. For the tobacco industry, protecting profits at the expense of the health of the Black community is nothing new.
The Biden administration had originally pledged to wrap up these rules by August 2023. So it was alarming to hear news that the rules could be delayed until this month in the midst of reported White House meetings with tobacco industry representatives.
We have seen this play out before.
Menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars were notably exempt from the 2009 Tobacco Control Act, in which Congress ended the sale of flavored cigarettes. In recent years, former Denver Mayor Michael Hancock vetoed the city council’s attempt to end the sale of flavored tobacco products in Denver, saying it was better left to the state. Meanwhile, Gov. Jared Polis publicly opposed state legislators’ efforts to end the sale of menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products here in Colorado, saying it should be handled locally.
All levels of government must act within their respective jurisdictions to end the sale of menthol and other flavored tobacco — from city councils to federal regulators.
In a House committee earlier this month, state legislators voted to postpone indefinitely Senate Bill 022, blocking a bill that would have clarified county commissioners’ authority to prohibit sales of flavored tobacco products in unincorporated areas of their counties. In comments before the vote, legislators called out the significant pressure exerted by tobacco industry lobbyists and others who profit from the sale of menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco.
Now Big Tobacco is pushing House Bill 1356 in Colorado, and similar legislation across the country to consolidate its market share on vaping devices and force out products from smaller manufacturers. But it does nothing to address menthol cigarettes.
While the tobacco industry uses its money and influence to obstruct meaningful policy reforms on menthol, the Black community suffers. Menthol flavoring has been falsely marketed as a healthier alternative to non-menthol tobacco products.
For generations, the tobacco industry has intentionally targeted Black communities with these spurious marketing campaigns, exploiting Black culture in print and film, bankrolling jazz festivals across the country, all in the pursuit of hooking Black people on their deadly products. Today, among Black people who smoke, more than 80% use menthol cigarettes. This means more tobacco-related death and disease cutting short far too many Black lives.
The tobacco industry is taking full advantage of its playbook of tactics to keep menthol on the market — from funding respected Black elders to carry their messaging and developing “menthol-like” products to skirt the law, to even spreading absurd claims about drug cartels and Hezbollah. The result of the industry’s decades of deceptions and delays on the part of policymakers is more Black lives lost to tobacco-related death and disease.
But again, we have been here before. And we press on. Let us focus on the facts:
- Tobacco use is the number one cause of preventable death in the United States, claiming an estimated 45,000 Black lives each year.
- Menthol cigarettes remain a key factor for tobacco-related death and disease in Black communities. Because of a long history of tobacco industry targeting, more than 81% of Black individuals who smoke, use menthol cigarettes.
- Menthol cigarettes were responsible for an estimated 1.5 million new smokers, 157,000 smoking-related premature deaths, and 1.5 million life years lost among Black people nationally from 1980–2018.
Ending the sale of menthol and flavored cigars will save Black lives. I have seen the effects of menthol cigarettes on my family and my community. My late father, an Air Force veteran, died an excruciating death because of his nicotine addiction. My late mother, also addicted to nicotine, died with lung cancer, although the death certificate cited breast cancer.
I am joining the American Lung Association and other health groups in urging the Biden administration to finalize the proposed rules to end the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. It’s too late for my parents and for my family, but this doesn’t have to be the case for other families. Sign their petition at Lung.org/Stop-Menthol.
Leanne D. Wheeler, an Air Force veteran, lives in Aurora and is the founder and principal of Wheeler Advisory Group. Her organization partners with organizations like the American Lung Association to put an end to nicotine products that create lifetime nicotine addiction and lead to preventable disease and death.
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