White House Delays a Decision on Banning Menthol Cigarettes

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/health/biden-menthol-cigarette-ban-black-voters.html

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The Biden administration delayed a decision on Wednesday about whether it would ban menthol cigarettes amid intense lobbying from tobacco companies, convenience stores and industry-backed groups that contend that billions of dollars in sales and jobs will be lost.

The proposal has also generated concerns that Black smokers will become the targets of aggressive police tactics, although some Black leaders, top lawmakers and government officials dispute that and say that tobacco companies are financing and fueling those fears.

The plan to eliminate menthol cigarettes has been years in the making. The Food and Drug Administration formally proposed an official rule last year, aimed at reducing health disparities, citing statistics that an estimated 85 percent of Black smokers prefer menthol brands. Black men especially face outsize health risks, including high rates of smoking-related lung cancer and death.

In recent months, dozens of groups have had appointments with administration officials to discuss the proposal. Tobacco companies and convenience store groups fighting the ban have aligned with the National Action Network, founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton, to advance the argument about the potential for racial targeting by the police. The group attended a large meeting with tobacco lobbyists and top administration officials on Nov. 20.

Many other Black organizations, including a majority of the Congressional Black Caucus, have dismissed the policing argument, calling it a cynical attempt to exploit trauma and distract from the harm of cigarettes.

“What we’re seeing now,” said Patrice Willoughby, vice president of policy and legislative affairs at the N.A.A.C.P., “is the reaction of a very well-organized industry that has been peddling death to the Black community.”