Saving lives is both a more likely outcome of a ban and a more important one. The White House should move ahead.
Menthol, which masks the unpleasant effects of inhaled smoke with a cooling sensation, is the last permissible cigarette flavoring. (Congress outlawed fruit, chocolate and the like in 2009.) Like others, it makes cigarettes more palatable, especially to beginners, including teenagers. Menthol has been found to enhance the effects of nicotine in the brain. Menthol smokers generally crave a cigarette sooner after waking in the morning than other smokers. They try to quit more often, but they succeed less.
Undeniably, the effect of a ban on menthols would be felt differently by different groups. Four out of 5 Black adults who smoke use menthol brands — Newport, Kool, Salem and others. Only about 1 in 3 White smokers do. Why? Tobacco companies deny responsibility, but for decades menthol brands were promoted especially to Black Americans — via magazine ads, billboards, concert sponsorships and free samples. Cigarette-makers have even charged lower prices for menthol brands in Black neighborhoods. So it takes some audacity for the tobacco industry and its spokespeople to say menthol bans unfairly target Black smokers. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, a past recipient of support from R.J. Reynolds, maker of Newport menthol cigarettes, has opposed a menthol ban based on its alleged disparate impact on Black communities.
The Food and Drug Administration formally proposed a menthol ban in April 2022 — after more than a decade of studies and delays. The administration had been expected to decide to move ahead with it last summer. Then political hesitation apparently kicked in, and a new target date was set for March. Concerns in the Black community, albeit encouraged by the tobacco industry, are rooted in something real: suspicion, based on historical experience, that a policy whose intended effects could disproportionately help Black people will have unintended effects that disproportionately harm them. As some critics have correctly pointed out, a ban could spawn illicit trade in menthol cigarettes — and police activity to suppress it, much of which would inevitably affect Black people.
Understandable as it might be, this notion is probably overstated; the ban, as proposed by the FDA, would not impose penalties for possession of menthols. Enforcement would focus on manufacturers, distributors and retailers. Meanwhile, any risk to individual smokers would fade as the ban took hold over time. That’s because fewer Black Americans would get addicted to tobacco in the first place. When it proposed the ban almost two years ago, the FDA declared that it would “prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers and help adult smokers quit” and “advance health equity by significantly reducing tobacco-related health disparities.” Based on Canada’s experience with its provincial menthol bans, researchers have estimated that a U.S. ban could lead nearly 800,000 daily smokers to quit, including nearly 200,000 Black smokers.
Overall, the FDA estimates that a U.S. ban could prevent roughly 255,000 premature deaths during the next 40 years. This is why the public health community is united in supporting it, with Black experts among the most prominent advocates. The African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council joined a 2020 lawsuit to spur the FDA’s work on a menthol ban. The NAACP and most members of the Congressional Black Caucus also support the ban.
It would have been preferable for the administration to enact the ban before the previous goal of Jan. 20. For technical reasons, that would have made it more difficult for a possible second Trump administration to undo the rule. Donald Trump and other Republicans have so far not supported banning menthols; some in the GOP, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have overtly opposed it.
There is no reason to wait. The Biden administration should have the backbone to do the obviously right thing, for the sake of Black lives — and for everyone’s confidence that facts, science and health can still carry the day in government, not just politics.
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