Biden government plans to ban menthol cigarettes
A ban on menthol cigarettes awaits as the Biden administration expects to announce its plan this week regarding the prohibition on menthol and other flavors in mass-produced cigars, including small cigars popular with young people. Tobacco opponents and civil rights groups eagerly anticipate this much-needed action by the government as African American communities have faced a history of aggressive and disproportionate targeting by the industry.
Multiple studies over the course of many years have revealed that compulsive smokers find quitting menthol cigarettes much harder than non-menthol ones. Moreover, African American health groups and researchers claim that in the 1950s, only about 10 percent of Black smokers used menthol cigarettes. Today, that proportion is more than 85 percent, three times the rate for White smokers. African Americans die of tobacco-related illnesses, including cancer and heart disease. Data accumulated over time is more than sufficient to show how the product has particularly severely deteriorated the health of the community.
Public Health Law Center at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in Minnesota had led a group of 19 public health organizations to file a 2013 citizen petition seeking a menthol-cigarette ban. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) faces a court deadline to respond to a suit filed by public health groups last year to respond to the petition.
Even though the administration is still hopeful about the idea of lowering the nicotine content in cigarettes, any final action was taken by the FDA would almost be surely challenged in court by the tobacco industry, which in the past has sued it many times to try to block anti-tobacco regulation. Sources claim that the administration would not comment on any of its plans regarding the regulation or ban this week.
The opponents firmly deny the claim that the cigarettes targeting any community with Kaelan Hollon, a spokeswoman for Reynolds American, maker of Newport, the most popular menthol cigarette, said the company markets its product “to reach a wide and diverse audience of adult smokers, regardless of their ethnicity or gender, with the intention of persuading smokers to choose one of our brands rather than a brand of one of our competitors.”
During the Trump government agency and its outside advisers found that banning menthol cigarettes would improve public health and save lives, and as a result momentum for a prohibition appeared to pick up. Scott Gottlieb, who was FDA commissioner at the time, said he would propose a menthol ban, but subsequently left the agency, which resulted in subsequent failure again.
