Biden Won’t Ban Menthol Cigarettes Due to Potential Backlash From Black Voters
I bet Biden will change his mind if he wins in November.
Oh, look. A politician is using politics to reverse course instead of public health or because it’s right. I’m totes shocked!
President Joe Biden’s administration wanted to ban menthol cigarettes for the public good.
Instead of reversing course because banning sucks, and it’d be the right thing not to change your mind (I find them disgusting), he’s doing it because it could affect his standing with black and Hispanic voters.
I bet Biden will change his mind if he wins in November:
Menthols account for more than a third of all cigarettes sold in the U.S. each year and are predominantly used by Black and Hispanic smokers. Some 81% of Black smokers used menthols in 2020, compared with 30% of white smokers and 51% of Hispanic smokers, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
The Biden administration in 2021 began pursuing a ban on menthol cigarettes, saying the policy move would reduce youth initiation, increase the success rate for smokers trying to quit and address health disparities among people of color. The plan was part of the administration’s Cancer Moonshot initiative to reduce the death rate from cancer.
The Food and Drug Administration had been expected to adopt a new rule banning menthols last year, but the plan was delayed as the White House mulled its political repercussions.
The FDA claimed menthol cigarettes are more dangerous to your health than regular cigarettes.
Black leaders told Biden not to ban the cigarettes because it could “expand the illicit market for cigarettes and lead police to racially profile Black smokers.”
But the NAACP, the National Black Nurses Association, the Association of Black Cardiologists, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Lung Association all wanted Biden to ban it.
California and Massachusetts banned menthol cigarettes. The EU did it in 2020.
A Canadian study claimed 1.3 million smokers would quit if menthol cigarettes went away, “including more than 380,000 Black smokers, in the first four to 23 months after the ban went into effect.”
Fantasy Island. It’s freaking hard to quit. I did it by going cold turkey. It wasn’t easy, though. Many of us slip now and then.
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Comments
I’m not on the side of banning them but somehow the Biden admin is wrong whether they choose to do it or not because they do everything for all of the wrong reasons.
I think you’re veering into moral philosophy. I say this based on episodes of the Good Place I’ve watched.
Motivation is important. Might be John Stuart Mill, but I’m not sure.
Not really.
It’s objectively wrong to ban it because other cigarettes are legal and there’s no data that menthols are worse than the legal forms (just because people have a preference).
It’s also objectively wrong not to ban it just to try to appease voters.
“there’s no data that menthols are worse than the legal forms”
“The FDA claimed menthol cigarettes are more dangerous to your health than regular cigarettes.”
Claimed, on “no data?”
I’m shocked, simply shocked.
It never actually claimed that. Your quote is not from any news report, let alone from an FDA statement, it’s Ms Chastain’s words, and it mischaracterizes the FDA position. The FDA doesn’t claim that a menthol cigarette does more harm to any individual’s health than an unflavored cigarette would; it claims that the availability of flavored cigarettes increases the number of smokers, and thus results in a worse total outcome for the population’s health.
Principles in action, y’all!
We have principles!
If you don’t like these, we have others…
Wife has been trying to quit for 20yrs. Heroin isn’t as hard to get off of.
If she has problems quitting then she should not even bother trying to quit, but should just reduce and regularize her smoking. First down to one cigarette an hour – which is a pack a day, basically, and then down to one every two hours. At a half a pack a day, that is really very little, almost a non-smoker, really. This is not that hard to do – nothing like quitting – and it makes every cigarette taste really good.
Used a similar method. Cut to half a pack then used time and location to further cut down. No smoking in the vehicle on the way home from work. Then not on the way to work. Then none after 8:00pm then only one after dinner. Finally I was down to 5 or 6 and used those Zyn nicotine pouches to replace cravings. Still use them but was able to quit smoking. Feel much better and a cost savings with a can of 20 Zyn pouches at $4.50 v a pack of smokes at $6.
Two other hints that helped me. Get your vehicle detailed. Pay the $ to the guy to do it right and the stale tobacco smell can be (mostly) removed. Same for clothing. Wash them repeatedly and get things dry cleaned as required if you can’t wash it at home.
Cold turkey, less painful in the long run
Gotta be in the correct mindset though and getting habits and daily routine aligned with cessation was a big help to me. The last 1/2 to 1/4 a pack per day is the hardest (or was to me anyway). Basically all I am saying is get yourself to the point you not only want to quit but have made changes to quit so that all that’s left of the race is the last sprint to the finish line and for THAT distance go cold turkey.
Habits are important and hard to break. If they weren’t then everyone who went on diet to lose weight wouldn’t relapse. Instead they would keep going to the gym, eating clean, eliminating processed foods, keep doing cardio and so on. As we know that usually doesn’t happen b/c they don’t have the self discipline to do so ‘cold turkey’.
So now ‘Old Joe’ wants to micro manage people’s lives right down to their brand and type of Coffin Nails?
Oh, god no.
He, or rather The Cabal, saw a potential issue to appease some part of his, meaning their, coalition. Much like principal-free foreign policy, say, in former Soviet Satellites, or The Middle East, just to pick a couple hypotheticals, reactive appeasement of the moment ties you in knots.
This is funny. “Old Joe” was the actual name of the animal who modeled for the “non-cartoon” Camel Cigarettes logo.
I was hoping somebody would pick up on that!
Biden is right about this. As long as cigarettes are legal, people, even Blacks, should be allowed to smoke whatever cigarettes they want. Some whiskeys are 90 proof, even 100 proof. Should we ban them because they are higher in alcohol than regular whiskeys? Most beers are 4 or 5 percent alcohol, should we ban most IPAs because they are 6 or 7 percent alcohol? Good for Biden, although this will probably be the only time I agree with him.
Biden isn’t “right” on this. It’s just that the broken clock is right twice a day.
“even Blacks,” JR?
Yes, even blacks. The 14th amendment says so.
Biden isn’t right about anything. He was and is clueless and totally out of the loop. He had nothing to do with this decision. His political managers ordered the FDA to “KOOL” it in order to appease Black voters who are growing more and more disaffected with Biden. The decision to delay was characterized as “temporary”. Yeah, temporary until the day after the election.
“Even blacks”.
Bloggers at Powerline will love your post, JR.
That isn’t Brandon the pedophiles position. His position was that they should be banned only he’s now rethinking that because he’s worried that they won’t be able to cheat hard enough to put his pedophile ass back in
“Even Blacks.” And you capitalized the “B.” For extra solidarity you should’ve put a “the” in front of “Blacks.”
Next you’ll tell us how you bravely stand for the right to drink malt liquor and use hair straightening lye.
“A Canadian study claimed 1.3 million smokers would quit”…. Anyone seriously seeing where Canada is these days would have to question any study. Nicotine is very addictive … so government boosts the cost… just like pushers do at street level. But then …. look at vax pushing these last 3+ years. By the way, nicotine doesn’t alter DNA like the jabs do.
Look, fat… My opinion of Joe Biden was formed long ago: the failed campaigns for the White House, the Clarence Thomas hearings…
You will find smarter people picking up trash on the side of the Interstate. This man is dumber than a box of rocks.
That said, please direct me to the clause in the Constitution stating that it is the responsibility of THE PRESIDENT to ban menthol cigarettes?
We long ago settled on the fact that cigarettes kill people. Full stop.
We do not need a moron to ban a certain flavor cigarette because it has racial overtones.
Nobody claims it’s in the constitution. The relevant clause is in a statute passed by Congress on the strength of the interstate commerce clause. Overturn Wickard and this statute is one of the many that would fall with it.
It depends. I was unsuccessful in quitting many times. Then, I got a cold one day (back in 2019) and didn’t smoke for a day (which was highly unusual as I used to smoke through EVERYTHING). I just decided at the end of the day that if I could go one day with cigarettes I should just not start again and I stopped. Period. Never even had any desire for a cigarette after that – and I live around people who smoke all the time. Doesn’t bother me, at all. ANd that was after having tried to quit maybe ten or fifteen times, including with patches and all that crap, and not being able to do it. And then, this one day that was just the end of it. I still have about 60 pounds of tobacco in my basement (since I used to inject my own cigarettes and kept years’ worth of cigarettes around so that I would never run out).
As to the idiotic Traitor Joe menthol ban, I was surprised they even pushed it all this far. The idea was pathetic, to begin with, and everyone knew that the only people it would really affect were blacks. The menthol flavor doesn’t attract anyone (other than black people, for whatever reason). The menthol is more of a smoking deterrent than anything. I had tried menthol cigarettes back when I first started smoking. I really liked the first few cigarettes, but that wore off very, very quickly.
All in all, I loved smoking cigarettes. I have no regrets about any of it. I have no idea how I was able to quit so easily, out of nowhere, but I did enjoy my years smoking and I am still a huge advocate for people’s right to smoke and against all of the insane despotic perversions of law this society creates to stop smoking. People have every right to smoke, and to smoke in public, and to have places to smoke. That these lunatics force smokers to stand outside in sub-freezing temperatures and in rain to smoke cigarettes (while they promote weed smoking everywhere) is insane and evil and despicable. And the private property rights that these lowlifes trash in their anti-cigarette jihad are those foundations of liberty that made this country what it is, not the soulless, retarded marxist junk that these losers are trying to force on us.
I agree 100%. I feel bad for those people when I see them. Also, airports getting rid of smoking lounges altogether, so people changing planes can’t get a fix between flights; whom does that benefit?
To me it all depends on what is considered a “public place”. When I ran retail stores (Radio Shack), a “public place”, I, for one, did NOT appreciate smokers grinding out their butts on my just-waxed and buffed floors, even where stand-style ash trays were provided.
And nothing beats the boundless joys of clearing out clogged urinal drains full of cigarette butts.
If the manager of a public place wants to permit smoking, or wants to have smoking sections, that should be up to him; I do not favor blanket prohibitions. A the same time, don’t compel others to clean up after these slobs.
I don’t smoke.
I prefer to not be around folks who do smoke.
My fav elder sis was addicted, if I visited her house my mom could tell from the odor transferred to my clothing.
Back in the day, I have a vivid memory of a four hour airplane flight where I was seated in the last no-smoking row before the smoking section. As soon as the NS light turned off it looked like every blessed person in back of me lit up a cig or cigar or pipe.
That said,…..
If we’re not going to ban smoking entirely (and we’re not) banning the tobacco with menthol flavoring reeks of discrimination. Logically, the next step after that is mandating deliberate bad flavoring be added to make tobacco use even less enjoyable for the addicts. It can be done, if some of the cheap 3rd world cigarette brands are any indication.
Who is down voting? Oh well….. in the “old” days when they would strip out the seats and wall coverings the underlying surface of the fuselage was tobacco brown. I imagine that the minute leaks got plugged up.
They were also able to trace pressurization leaks by looking for the amber-brown streaks on the fussilage.
Smoking saves lives!
Addicts are clever. You think the brains who discovered how to “crack” cocaine are above spiking their coffin nails with a little powdered Tic Tac or a shmear of VapoRub?
The more discriminating smoker looks down on Vicks schmearers; they use Mentholatum,.
He didn’t exactly care about black voters when he imported a few million Mexicans to take their jobs.
Capitalize black and not white—I stop reading.
Cannabis is legal, but tobacco must be banned?
It’s an artifact from the hippies. They hated their parents more than anything – mostly their fathers – and their parents smoked cigarettes, so they hated cigarettes.
Pretty much everything about the Western Left comes down to their hate of their fathers and themselves. They want to destroy anything that reminds them of either … which is why they are deranged nihilists bent on the annihilation of the West.
In reading your comment, I can make a guess at your profession: are you a shrink?
LOL. Not even close. Mathematician who veered into computers way back when.
NWO Animal Farm America needs strong, stupid workers.
Cannabis makes you stupid, while tobacco kills you.
Smoking weed kills you the same way that smoking tobacco kills you the same way that smoking any organic matter will likely kill you. But weed smoke is much thicker and heavier and is held inside, intentionally, so it does much more immediate damage than cigarette smoke.
On the other hand, a typical weed smoker smokes a lot less weed than a typical tobacco smoker does tobacco, so overall a tobacco habit generally does more harm.
Depends upon the definition of ‘harm’. Individuals may suffer early death but society ‘benefits’ overall from reduced expenditures as less late stage lifespan means reduced Social Security and Pension payments and maybe less consumption of medical care, though cancer treatment or heart surgery might also occur pre death. On the other hand neither of my Parents smoked and my Mom died of cancer at 65 and my Dad had a triple bypass at age 56 while many smokers live to ripe old age without major health problems.
does this mean we don’t have to stock up on Ripple ??
Breaking 📰
Biden won’t arrest black people for murdering white people till after November election…
There you go, give them what they want and let them choke on it.
Can’t wait for biden to tell us the story about how he used to smoke Kools behind the pool house with Cornpop.
“I bet Biden will change his mind if he wins in November.”
If Biden and/or his ilk win in November by whatever means, we will not be worrying about laws, courts, or legislation. It will all be decrees. At least for a while.
Subotai Bahadur
Brandon heard that Omar Comin.
I wonder if this oh-so-wonderful concern for the welfare of blacks is yet another example of the Democrats trying to protect their pet Negroes?
It seems it is always the Democrats who want to do this or that or the other to protect, feed, house, clothe, and otherwise care for blacks by taking money from others to do so. Do they still see the Negro as the foolish children they held as slaves in the good old days?