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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