The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday announced it would move to ban menthol tobacco cigarettes and flavored cigars, a historic step the agency said would significantly prevent death and disease, particularly among Black Americans.
Here is a quote from the FDA Press release of April 19.2021:
"In the U.S., it is estimated that there are nearly 18.6 million current smokers of menthol cigarettes. But use of menthol cigarettes among smokers is not uniform: out of all Black smokers, nearly 85% smoke menthol cigarettes, compared to 30% of White smokers who smoke menthols. In addition, among youth, from 2011 to 2018, declines in menthol cigarette use were observed among non-Hispanic White youth but not among non-Hispanic Black or Hispanic youth"
Normally I do not post political editorial comments on this board, but some of the enforcement action demands note. No matter if you voted for Biden or not. No matter if you are a flaming progressive "Bernie" liberal or not: You must be aware that "big brother / big government" far left movement has real day to day consequences on your life. Under the newly elected administration, the current tone and accepted practice in DC is that the bureaucrats are having a wild party, and YOU, the American Citizen, is the guest of honor.
Are you Black, then what's next? Following the above FDA logic then all these suggested moves make perfect sense: Here is some more "Flavor Prohibitions" that the big government should consider:
1.) More Blacks are killed by domestic violence gunfire that whites. It is known that the style of these guns is "chrome plated type". Therefore ban Blacks owning (chrome plated) guns.
2.) Obesity is a major co-morbidity factor, especially in CLOVID-19. Obesity in Blacks is know to be associated with excessive consumption of high calorie "soul food". Ban foods containing a flavor chemical profile similar to known profiles of samples of soul food..
3.) In the U.S., it is estimated that there are nearly 18.6 million current users of "menthol" or "spearmint" room air fresheners. But use of these is not uniform: out of all Black users, nearly 85% use menthol fresheners, compared to 30% of Whites. Since the FDA has determined that this flavor profile is a clear gateway to the general use of "room air modifiers", and these products emits level of Particulate Emissions in excess of the EPA Standards to Control Particulate Matter (PM) Pollution ( see: https://bit.ly/3e6gwM2) It is hereby mandated that it will be a crime for Black to purchase "Menthol Air Fresheners"
FDA ban on menthol cigarettes: Bad for criminal justice, health policy:
Following Re-Printed from an article appearing in "The Hill" a political analysis newspaper.
BY GUY BENTLEY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 05/01/21 09:30 AM EDT
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) just announced it will pursue a ban on the sale of menthol cigarettes. Menthol cigarettes, which currently make up around a third of the cigarette market, are disproportionately used by Black Americans. While proponents of the ban claim that a menthol prohibition is a matter of racial justice, the reality is that such a ban will most likely contribute to overcriminalization in Black communities already struggling to determine the role that policing should play in their neighborhoods.
That is why the American Civil Liberties Union has taken a strong stance on the issue, stating in a letter to the FDA that "such a ban will trigger criminal penalties, which will disproportionately impact people of color, as well as prioritize criminalization over public health and harm reduction."
Paired with a potential plan to gradually limit the amount of nicotine in cigarettes to minimally addictive or nonaddictive levels, a story The Wall Street Journal broke earlier this month, the federal government is going after tobacco use at a rate that has not been seen in decades.
Cutting nicotine in cigarettes to near zero is a not so subtle way of banning cigarettes while preserving the illusion of consumer choice. If the federal government cut the alcohol level in liquor to "minimal" or "nonintoxicating," no one would consider the product liquor. Some might quit drinking or switch to other forms of alcohol, but it would be hopelessly naive to assume people wouldn't seek out the real deal.
And the scientific evidence for implementing such a radical policy is weak.
The FDA acknowledges that some studies show smokers who switched to very low nicotine cigarettes reduced the number of cigarettes they smoked and reduced nicotine dependence — but other research shows no change in the number of cigarettes smoked. Even in studies showing a reduction in cigarette use, the decline is slight. What's worse is that these studies are conducted under conditions so different from the real world as to be effectively meaningless, with participants given financial incentives and free cigarettes.
FDA-funded modeling claims that 5 million smokers would quit in the first year of President Biden’s proposed policy. But such estimates are derived from a simulation based on the subjective guestimates of eight experts. These experts also assume widespread availability of safer alternatives such as e-cigarettes, which is a dubious assumption since the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a host of states are doing everything they can to ban vaping. The FDA’s paper is a classic case of "policy-based evidence," where a policy is proposed and evidence is created to support it.
While the FDA is authorized to reduce nicotine levels in combustible cigarettes under the Tobacco Control Act (TCA), it cannot ban cigarettes outright or reduce nicotine content to zero. The decision to pursue prohibition is reserved for Congress. It's unclear at this time whether lowering nicotine to the proposed levels would be covered by the TCA. What is certain is that the policy will result in waves of litigation from the tobacco industry.
Then there is the proposed ban on menthol cigarettes. It is true most Black smokers use menthol cigarettes. What is also true is that Black and white adults smoke at similar rates, and Black youth smoke at lower rates than white youth. Black smokers also start later and smoke fewer cigarettes than white smokers. In fact, according to a study published last year by Reason Foundation, states with higher menthol consumption relative to all cigarettes have lower, not higher, rates of youth smoking. Youth smoking is thankfully at its lowest levels in years, and 54 percent of underage smokers use nonmenthol cigarettes.
With smoking rates at historic lows, why would the administration target the product mostly used Black smokers?
Doing so would undoubtedly contribute to overcriminalization in the Black communities that use menthol cigarettes at much higher rates.
Supporters of Biden’s proposal claim banning the sale and production of menthols — not their use — avoids the problems of disproportionate criminal outcomes in certain communities. But the Volstead Act that set off Prohibition in the 1920s never prohibited the consumption of alcohol — just its manufacture, distribution and sale. We know the consequences of that policy were disastrous.
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This is why the American Civil Liberties Union, National Action Network, Law Enforcement Action Partnership and Drug Policy Alliance have all warned that a menthol ban would disproportionately impact people of color and trigger criminal penalties by prioritizing criminalization over harm reduction.
Rather than pursue costly prohibitions, the Biden administration should commit itself to following the evidence and incentivize smokers to quit — with better services and products, such as e-cigarettes, which have proved to be the most popular and often effective tool to quit smoking.
Guy Bentley is the director of consumer freedom research at Reason Foundation.
Regarding the FDA's strategy towards tobacco harm reduction, I feel it is less of a left vs right problem as it is a problem with money and special interests over science.
pBusardo has a YouTube channel where they have been going over the subject off and on over a series of episodes. They like to compare UK's strategy of tobacco harm reduction with the US. The UK embraces vaping as a nicotine replacement therapy, given that the success rate is astronomically greater than pills, patches, or gums.
I profess not to have followed the topic carefully, but I get the impression that people like Bloomberg are throwing a lot of money at destroying vaping without really seeking to regulate it to prevent youth use. There is also this broad impression that the vaping market is too independent, and the government wants its piece of the pie, so they want to lock things down to a few vendors where they can ensure they get their tax dollars. And those few vendors should be big pharma and big tobacco, because they want their piece of the pie as well.
It's like gambling. Gambling is an unhealthy habit, but its also a great source of revenue from the lower income bracket. And the news is all in, pushing stories about the big jackpot.
In addition, lawmakers just see the sensational headlines like batteries blowing up, popcorn lung, EVALI, and such without actually reading into the subject. It's all part of a general misinformation campaign to castigate vaping.
What's also covered in the pBusardo videos is that the independent vaping industry had an opportunity to confront the problem but was too busy making money and not adequately banding together to pour money into the public image and legislation problem.
Overall, I am not optimistic about the big picture, but if the FDA really were interested in the science of tobacco harm reduction, all they have to do is follow the UK.
In a February 2020 letter from groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network to members of Congress warning that a menthol prohibition “promises continued over-criminalization and mass incarceration of people of color.”
“We are concerned that banning flavors in tobacco products and imposing mandatory minimums will give law enforcement yet another excuse to harass and stop people of color. We believe that there are better ways to addressing nicotine dependency rather than punishing people with prison.”
He added that “criminalizing menthol could lead to serious unintended consequences” because “illicit sale and distribution of tobacco products is a crime” in all 50 states.
“A far better approach is to support the establishment of a marketplace of FDA-authorized smoke-free alternatives that are attractive to adult smokers,” he added.
Both the ACLU and the National Action Network oppose a menthol prohibition, citing concerns that it will lead to an underground market of menthol products and increase interactions between police and people of color. Opponents often invoke the case of Eric Garner, who died at the hands of a police officer in 2014 after being stopped for allegedly selling illegal cigarettes in Staten Island, New York.
“We do not think kids should be put in jail or given a ticket for selling menthol,” Sharpton told The Washington Post last month. “You’re going to give the police another reason to engage our people?”
The following authored by Alex Norcia, a Filter Magazine news editor:
The announcements have been years in the making: On April 28, 2022, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced proposed rules for a ban on menthol cigarettes, after a recent announcement saying it would move forward on a menthol ban, following a previous announcement saying a menthol ban was imminent. Robert Califf, the new FDA commissioner, has now presented the planned ban to a congressional subcommittee. The proposed rule would also prohibit flavors in cigars, including cigarillos.
Explicitly, the proposed law would prohibit “menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes”—meaning that “a cigarette or any of its components or parts (including the tobacco, filter, wrapper, or paper, as applicable) shall not contain, as a constituent (including a smoke constituent) or additive, menthol that is a characterizing flavor of the tobacco product or tobacco smoke.” Nobody would be able to manufacture, distribute, sell or offer for the distribution of sale any such cigarette or its components and parts.
Many civil rights groups oppose the prohibition as a continuation of the War on Drugs, saying it is likely to increase interactions between Black people and the police.
The plan has been embraced by the Biden administration and much of mainstream tobacco control as a means to reduce cancer rates and youth experimentation—and as something of a corrective to the tobacco industry’s marketing of menthol toward Black communities. A large majority of Black smokers smoke menthols.
But many drug policy and civil rights groups—including the Drug Policy Alliance and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)—oppose the prohibition as a continuation of the War on Drugs, saying it is likely to increase interactions between Black people and the police.
Like it has in the past, the FDA emphasized in a press release that it would not—and could not—target people who use or possess menthol flavored cigarettes for enforcement. The agency would instead only focus on manufacturers and distributors, it said. The FDA acknowledged that state and local law authorities could not take enforcement action on the agency’s behalf, but said it would seek input on “how it can best make clear the respective roles of the agency and state and local law enforcement, as well as policy considerations related to the potential racial and social justice implications of the proposed product standards.”
Yet advocates note that prohibiting products used in communities that have already borne the brunt of drug-war enforcement will create illicit markets within those communities, leading to further criminalization as lines between consumers and sellers blur.
“One need only review the history of criminal law enforcement with crack cocaine, cannabis, opioids, or other drugs, and alcohol in the 1920s, to know that law enforcement is the wrong tool here, especially when there are other, far more helpful interventions the federal government could be emphasizing,” stated a recent letter to the administration from dozens of human rights and drug policy organizations that oppose the menthol ban. “Any proposal to effectively criminalize the sale and distribution of a product used by 18 million adults, particularly a product preferred by black and brown citizens, must take these issues with the utmost seriousness and undertake genuine efforts to find better policy solutions.”
“Time and time again, we see encounters with police over minor offenses—for Daunte Wright it was expired tags, for George Floyd it was using a counterfeit bill, for Eric Garner it was selling loose cigarettes—result in a killing,” read an ACLU statement in response to the April 28 announcement. “There are serious concerns that the ban implemented by the Biden administration will eventually foster an underground market that is sure to trigger criminal penalties which will disproportionately impact people of color and prioritize criminalization over public health and harm reduction.”
Menthol prohibition is rolling forward, but will not happen quickly: Many forecast it won’t go into effect until 2024.
Menthol prohibition is rolling forward, but will not happen quickly: The FDA now intends to invite public comments on the proposed rules through July 5, 2022, and many forecast the ban won’t go into effect until 2024—perhaps even later if the tobacco industry sues the agency. As the Wall Street Journal reported, the plan “could sweep from the market more than a third of all cigarettes sold in the US,” which represent “more than $20 billion in annual sales.”
The menthol debate has been a contentious one since as early as June 2009, when President Barack Obama signed a law giving the FDA the power to regulate tobacco products. The agency then stripped flavored cigarettes—except menthol—from the market. But the FDA has since faced a court deadline to act on the menthol-ban question, which was triggered from a citizen petition in 2013 signed by advocacy groups like the American Heart Association, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK), and the American Lung Association. As part of his comprehensive tobacco control plan, former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb began plans to ban menthol cigarettes in 2017. That eventually stalled, and Gottlieb resigned in 2019.
As with vaping, harm reduction and drug policy reform advocates find themselves in the precarious position of making similar arguments to the tobacco industry—which, cynically or not, has adopted the language of harm reduction and racial justice to support e-cigarettes and the continued sale of menthol combustibles. To some degree, the planned ban has divided both the Black community—the NAACP, for example, supports it as a way to promote health—and the tobacco harm reduction community.
“Prohibition is not the answer. Harm reduction is.”
The ban would not cover menthol e-cigarettes; however, the FDA has yet to authorize a single menthol-flavored vaping product through its premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) process. The agency has also stated that it would consider making some exemptions on a case-by-case basis, which include heat-not-burn devices and cigarettes with very low nicotine levels.
“Prohibition is not the answer,” stated the letter from the anti-ban coalition. “Harm reduction is. Rather than criminalizing this product, FDA and the Administration should be massively investing in community-based health care solutions.”
