Less black people smoking cigarettes is a net positive and was pushed for by black people. Allowing cigarette companies to continue taking advantage of black communities is a bad take.
I also take issue with the idea that "a group of self-appointed leaders from a marginalized community asked for this regulation, so it is therefore good."
The conclusion isn't "so it is therefore good;" the conclusion is "so maybe we should consider what they have to say." Maybe this is some ploy to harm black people, but that at least becomes less likely if a black advocacy group is (in part) behind it.
Even with advocacy from Black health experts, I disagree with the logic of a ban on menthol cigarettes though.
I don't think it's a ploy to harm anyone, I think it's just going to make people's lives suck a little more once they can't get menthol cigarettes or flavored blunt wraps.
I agree with all of that. This isn't even a good treatment of the symptoms, much less a treatment of any root causes.
I do think noting who's behind this is still important, though, precisely because it gets to the question of whether there's an intent to harm people or whether it's just a bad policy choice.
You completely missed the point. The point of the post was to show that the FDA's decision to ban menthol cigarettes was not intended to harm black people because it was advocated for by black people. In the example you gave, women's rights groups pushed for alcohol prohibition to stop men from drinking because of alcoholics being domestic abusers.
I think that's not a cynical or maybe just realistic enough view of prohibition honestly. The mass push against alcohol was as a means to alleviate fears of immigrants, working class folks, and Catholics by a predominantly Protestant population who was beginning to lose a sense of control. They did some good stuff like raising the age of consent in laces, but broadly it was a religious movement from the dominant religion and race, attempting to close down establishments that became a refuge of immigrants, union activity, and other "uncivil" stuff.
There was certainly a well-intentioned aspect to it for most members, particularly women, but the undercurrent was always suspect imo, more like it dragged along actual concerned people. Saloons being busted was pushed for by the temperance movement with the help of the police and bosses in order for the latter two to be able to crush the rise in unions and other worker comradery occurring in these places after work.
Fantastic summary of the role of saloons as social institutions of the working class in Chicago from 1900
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5765/
In the statement, now current among those who have studied the saloon “at first hand,” that it is the workingman’s club, lies the secret of its hold upon the vast working and voting populace of Chicago. That same instinct in man which leads those of the more resourceful classes to form such clubs as the Union League Club, or the Marquette Club; which leads the college man into the fraternity, leads the laboring men into the clubs furnished them by the saloonkeeper, not from philanthropic motives, but because of shrewd business foresight. The term “club” applies; for, though unorganized, each saloon has about the same constituency night after night. Its character is determined by the character of the men who, having something in common, make the saloon their rendezvous. Their common ground may be their nationality, as the name “Italian Headquarters” implies; or it may be their occupation, as indicated by the names “Mechanics' Exchange,” "Milkman’s Exchange,“ etc.; or, if their political affiliations are their common ground, there are the ” Democratic Headquarters of the Eighteenth Ward,“ etc. As shown above, the ”club-room“ is furnished with tables, usually polished and cleaned, with from two to six chairs at each table. As you step in, you find a few men standing at the bar, a few drinking, and farther back men are seated about the tables, reading, playing cards, eating, and discussing, over a glass of beer, subjects varying from the political and sociological problems of the day to the sporting news and the lighter chat of the immediate neighborhood. Untrammeled by rules and restrictions, it surpasses in spirit the organized club. That general atmosphere of freedom, that spirit of democracy, which men crave, is here realized; that men seek it and that the saloon tries to cultivate it is blazoned forth in such titles as ”The Freedom,“ "The Social,” "The Club,“ etc. Here men ”shake out their hearts together." Intercourse quickens the thought, feeling, and action.
In many of these discussions, to which I have listened and in which I have joined, there has been revealed a deeper insight into the real cause of present evils than is often manifested from lecture platforms, but their remedies are wide of the mark, each bringing forward a theory which is the panacea for all social ills. The names of Karl Marx and leaders of political and social thought are often heard here. This is the workingman’s school. He is both scholar and teacher. The problems of national welfare are solved here. Many as patriotic men as our country produces learn here their lessons in patriotism and brotherhood. Here the masses receive their lessons in civil government, learning less of our ideals, but more of the practical workings than the public schools teach. It is the most cosmopolitan institution in the most cosmopolitan of cities. One saloon advertises its cosmopolitanism by this title, “Everybody’s Exchange.” Men of all nationalities meet and mingle, and by the interchange of views and opinions their own are modified. Nothing short of travel could exert so broadening an influence upon these men. It does much to assimilate the heterogeneous crowds that are constantly pouring into our city from foreign shores. But here, too, they learn their lessons in corruption and vice. It is their school for good and evil. ........
The adaptability of the saloon to the needs of a particular locality is a source of constant surprise and admiration, as it is also a cause of genuine consternation among Christian people who reflect at all upon the cautious institutionalism of the churches.
As with much of the Progressive Era, the reforms came from a place of social order and to some extent social-Darwinism. Poverty was caused by drink, not the bosses, Abuse was caused by drink, not by the patriarchal society, drink was the reason the immigrants are bad and must be "cleansed" and made American or have their kids taken away. Drink caused workers to earn lower wages cause slaking, not the system of wages itself being a shackle upon working people.
They were joined by businessmen, industrialists, the hierarchy of the Protestant Churches and the descendants of the Southern landed gentry. The Anti-Saloon League, a Protestant church-based Ohio organization that became a driving force in bringing about Prohibition, didn’t get all their money by passing around the collection plate. John D. Rockefeller kicked in $350,000. Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie backed them as well.
Even if it cited actual social-ills, temperance was built upon anxieties over immigration, religion, and class. It is pretty comparable to any other case of concern trolling or using a social issue for one's own ends or protection of the hegemons.
When it's put this way it sounds a lot better. The way I saw it before looked like it was targeting black people to harm them. Still, they should just due away with smokes all together.
I mean growing and rolling your own tobacco is fine and I have no problem with people doing that, but allowing Marlboro to prey on you is pretty fucked up.
I mean growing and cooking your own food is fine and I have no problem with people doing that, but allowing grocery stores to prey on you is pretty fucked up
How? Tobacco is tobacco and shitty for you no matter where you get it from, also most people don't have a field to grow it in or space to cure it. Any time you buy pretty much anything you're being exploited by one shitty company or another. Any of these arguments can apply as much if not moreso to alcohol and they can freely advertise that and no one is saying we ban booze that tastes good or demand that beer be sold in a plain can with just Beer written on it in a plain font with an image or a destroyed liver and no one seems to have an issue there.
Never said it was good for you, even if it was homegrown, but why are we defending large tobacco companies that knowingly add harmful additives to their cigs and pretty much prey upon the poor with their product? That's what's got me confused here. It feels like people are tripping over themselves to go to bat for Philip Morris. And yeah it's a shitty equivalence because people need to go to the store and by groceries. The grocery store isn't putting rat poison in their food and selling it back to you.
real bruh moment, not a good look my dude, you just posted cringe, that's certainly an opinion. Piss the fuck off. Do you really think smoking is only okay if you grow your own fucking tobacco? So you need land to grow it and space to cure it and time to do so? Yeah it's the same thing, if you don't hate the product but hate the capitalist means of obtaining it then there is no distinction and you're being a paternalistic moralizer to say otherwise.
I talked about this in another thread. Having tobacco companies exist with a profit incentive is bad, since this means they will always want to go out of their way to get as many people addicted to nicotine as possible, since this increases their profits. Hence the marketing, hence the very existence of menthol cigarettes, hence the handing out free samples of menthol cigarettes to kids in black communities in the 50s/60s. This is just scratching the surface of the evil shit tobacco companies have done. Without this profit incentive there simply wouldn't be nearly as many people using tobacco products. I'd expect a socialist society to still have smokers, just a lot less without the incentive to expand the customer base. In the meantime, though, it makes sense to curb tobacco use wherever possible, because it is still killing people today. Full prohibition would likely fail, but policies like plain labels have been shown to work, and I suspect banning menthols will also help, so there's plenty of room to reduce harm.
I agree with this. A socialist society would still have cigarettes but without the need for profit there wouldn't be advertising or marketing to grow their customer base. I think cigarette use would be near zero in 2 generations. Similar thing with vapes.
Not accurate. This is not a prohibition issue. This is focused on limiting the way that capitalists can manipulate people with advertisements and snake oil. Cigarette companies have spent decades saying that menthol cigarettes are more healthy for you. I don't think that any drug should be advertised, but in the US we have drug advertisements on television.
You may say that "We're all adult, we can do we want," but this is naive. This is the same kind of thing that liberals say about wage labor. Liberals say "We're all adults. You don't need a union to protect you." Doing what you want to yourself may be okay, but profiting by exploiting people is not okay. Cigarette companies exploit and manipulate cigarette users in ways that the user may not even understand. Cigarette companies should be obstructed in any way possible.
Being against prohibition does not mean being against business regulation.
This is focused on limiting the way that capitalists can manipulate people with advertisements and snake oil. Cigarette companies have spent decades saying that menthol cigarettes are more healthy for you. I don’t think that any drug should be advertised, but in the US we have drug advertisements on television.
You can ban all of that without banning the actual sale of menthols.
Anyone who smokes knows that menthols are worse for you. The urban legends about the added fiberglass or switching to menthols when you have bronchitis to make yourself cough out more crap are both hella common in low income communities where people smoke. Considering how little advertising there is for nicotine nowadays, I must have missed the period where they advertised that menthols were healthier. If anything, the people that smoked them liked them because they were harsher but had a flavor.
Either way, it's been seen over and over that prohibition doesn't work. Ban menthols. People will find a way to dip their cigs in VaporRub or something. Ban vaping. People learn to make their own vape juice and sell it. Ban alcohol and people will brew their own. And then people will get sick even worse than they did from the original substances because these modifications will be completely unregulated.
I agree that smoking shouldn't be banned and that propaganda isn't a mind control ray, but fucking hell did cigarette advertisments work well. They worked so well that even though they're mostly banned, the effects are still rippling through our society via generational transmission.
Cigarettes have lore to them in working class communities. Everyone has a brand they smoke and it becomes a part of your identity. More than anything else I can think of except maybe a car. I know dozens of people with Camel Cash stories they got from their grandparents and shit.
So yeah, the marketing worked insanely well. It helped that the product was addictive, but I really don't think it would have been the same without the pervasiveness of the advertisement and branding.
This is not a prohibition. It's a business regulation. Make your own menthols if you want.
Alcohol is already extremely regulated in very similar ways. There are very strict guidelines on how alcohol is made and sold.
You already admitted in another post that you oppose the ban because you smoke menthol cigarettes yourself and don't want to be inconvenienced. You don't care that cigarette companies exploit people. You don't care that cigarette companies prey on black communities. You just don't want a tiny inconvenience in your life.
Read the article by the FDA. According to their research, the ban of the sale of menthol cigarettes is predicted to prevent the deaths of 633,000 people, including 237,000 African Americans. To you, a tiny inconvenience is more important than the lives of 633,000 people. Then you say that it's entirely their fault, as if it not possible that people were deceived, manipulated, and exploited.
This is a liberal mindset to think that consumption of a commodity is simply a relationship between the consumer and the commodity. The commodity is a relationship between the consumer and the producer. You are doing commodity fetishism. The menthol cigarette sale ban breaks this relationship. You can still roll your own menthol cigarettes.
Cigarette prohibition would work as well as alcohol and marijuana prohibition have worked. It's totally beyond the pale of reasonable policy suggestions.
Now if we want to talk about changing warning labels (CW: nasty shit), or regulating away tobacco marketing, or making it less convenient to consume, that's more in the realm of something we should consider.
This claim is wildly inaccurate. Some black politicians may have supported it at the time. Several articles says that the black politicians were pressured into supporting it. The bill was introduced by Jack Brooks, drafted by Joe Biden, and signed into law by Bill Clinton. The bill was based on Bill Clinton's campaign promise to be tough on crime. It was not lead by black leaders.
It's gonna be some logic like "black people have poorer health outcomes in the US so we are banning menthols to get them to stop smoking ." Like some actually woke segregation shit.
Anecdotally when I sold cigarettes at a gas station black people generally were more likely to by menthol. I wasn't aware of the stereotype at the time so it's at least a little unbiased.
The average African-American adult has been exposed to about 892 tobacco-related ads, and youth, 559 tobacco-related ads.[1] Among adult and youth smokers, Newport, Kool, and Marlboro are the most popular brands. About 42% of black adults smoke Newport, while 84% of young African-Americans smoke this brand as well. African-Americans are the top consumers of all menthol products. Some products were made specifically for African-American consumers, such as Marlboro Menthol Shorts, which were advertised as being "exquisitely designed for the African-American lung."
this 2011 paper on menthol smoking from roughly 2004-2008 had this to say:
Blacks had the highest rate of past month menthol cigarette use between 2004 and 2010. Almost one in five blacks smoked menthol cigarettes each year. The 2010 rate for blacks (19.1 percent) was close to triple that of whites (6.5 percent) and Hispanics (7.8 percent), and
5 times that of Asians (3.6 percent). By contrast,
blacks had the lowest 2010 rate of nonmenthol cigarette use (3.5 percent).
There was a clear black vs. nonblack menthol usage on the graph on page 4; most other race/ethnic groups were 8% max.
The non-menthol cigarette usage was almost the exact opposite; roughly 20% usage among whites and 3-4% among black people.
I think the statistics are a little bullshit to be honest (I saw this cited by a .org site attributing to it data that is not in this paper) but I think there is definitely a racial divide in menthol cigarette habits
Are black people who smoke menthols going to stop smoking, or reduce their consumption? Or will they just switch to other cigarettes? If there's some research suggesting that people would rather not smoke at all than smoke something besides menthols, maybe this will do something, but I would be surprised to see those results.
Have you considered reading the FDA's ban press release?
One study suggests that banning menthol cigarettes in the U.S. would lead an additional 923,000 smokers to quit, including 230,000 African Americans in the first 13 to 17 months after a ban goes into effect. An earlier study projected that about 633,000 deaths would be averted, including about 237,000 deaths averted for African Americans.
[ FDA press release ]
Menthols are literally more addictive and more carcinogenic. Simply banning their production will reduce death even if every menthol smoker switched to regular tobacco.
Super cool how instead of blanket banning cigarettes it's just menthols to hurt black people. Vote blue no matter who though or Trump will come back.
I see a lot of people posting misinformation about this.
YES, the ban of menthol cigarettes targets black people. The push for the ban was led by a black advocacy group called the AATCLC (African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council).
Less black people smoking cigarettes is a net positive and was pushed for by black people. Allowing cigarette companies to continue taking advantage of black communities is a bad take.
And alcohol prohibition was pushed by a women advocacy group as a women's rights issue. Prohibition of any drug doesn't work.
I also take issue with the idea that "a group of self-appointed leaders from a marginalized community asked for this regulation, so it is therefore good."
The conclusion isn't "so it is therefore good;" the conclusion is "so maybe we should consider what they have to say." Maybe this is some ploy to harm black people, but that at least becomes less likely if a black advocacy group is (in part) behind it.
Even with advocacy from Black health experts, I disagree with the logic of a ban on menthol cigarettes though.
I don't think it's a ploy to harm anyone, I think it's just going to make people's lives suck a little more once they can't get menthol cigarettes or flavored blunt wraps.
I agree with all of that. This isn't even a good treatment of the symptoms, much less a treatment of any root causes.
I do think noting who's behind this is still important, though, precisely because it gets to the question of whether there's an intent to harm people or whether it's just a bad policy choice.
You completely missed the point. The point of the post was to show that the FDA's decision to ban menthol cigarettes was not intended to harm black people because it was advocated for by black people. In the example you gave, women's rights groups pushed for alcohol prohibition to stop men from drinking because of alcoholics being domestic abusers.
I think that's not a cynical or maybe just realistic enough view of prohibition honestly. The mass push against alcohol was as a means to alleviate fears of immigrants, working class folks, and Catholics by a predominantly Protestant population who was beginning to lose a sense of control. They did some good stuff like raising the age of consent in laces, but broadly it was a religious movement from the dominant religion and race, attempting to close down establishments that became a refuge of immigrants, union activity, and other "uncivil" stuff.
There was certainly a well-intentioned aspect to it for most members, particularly women, but the undercurrent was always suspect imo, more like it dragged along actual concerned people. Saloons being busted was pushed for by the temperance movement with the help of the police and bosses in order for the latter two to be able to crush the rise in unions and other worker comradery occurring in these places after work.
Fantastic summary of the role of saloons as social institutions of the working class in Chicago from 1900 http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5765/
As with much of the Progressive Era, the reforms came from a place of social order and to some extent social-Darwinism. Poverty was caused by drink, not the bosses, Abuse was caused by drink, not by the patriarchal society, drink was the reason the immigrants are bad and must be "cleansed" and made American or have their kids taken away. Drink caused workers to earn lower wages cause slaking, not the system of wages itself being a shackle upon working people.
https://offtheleash.net/2017/12/19/prohibition-as-class-warfare/
Even if it cited actual social-ills, temperance was built upon anxieties over immigration, religion, and class. It is pretty comparable to any other case of concern trolling or using a social issue for one's own ends or protection of the hegemons.
When it's put this way it sounds a lot better. The way I saw it before looked like it was targeting black people to harm them. Still, they should just due away with smokes all together.
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I mean growing and rolling your own tobacco is fine and I have no problem with people doing that, but allowing Marlboro to prey on you is pretty fucked up.
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I dunno, that's just my take as a smoker and someone who lost a loved on to smoking.
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I mean growing and cooking your own food is fine and I have no problem with people doing that, but allowing grocery stores to prey on you is pretty fucked up
This is a bullshit equivalency, knock it off.
How? Tobacco is tobacco and shitty for you no matter where you get it from, also most people don't have a field to grow it in or space to cure it. Any time you buy pretty much anything you're being exploited by one shitty company or another. Any of these arguments can apply as much if not moreso to alcohol and they can freely advertise that and no one is saying we ban booze that tastes good or demand that beer be sold in a plain can with just Beer written on it in a plain font with an image or a destroyed liver and no one seems to have an issue there.
Never said it was good for you, even if it was homegrown, but why are we defending large tobacco companies that knowingly add harmful additives to their cigs and pretty much prey upon the poor with their product? That's what's got me confused here. It feels like people are tripping over themselves to go to bat for Philip Morris. And yeah it's a shitty equivalence because people need to go to the store and by groceries. The grocery store isn't putting rat poison in their food and selling it back to you.
reddit moment
i don't have strong feelings one way or another but you really thought this was a post, huh?
real bruh moment, not a good look my dude, you just posted cringe, that's certainly an opinion. Piss the fuck off. Do you really think smoking is only okay if you grow your own fucking tobacco? So you need land to grow it and space to cure it and time to do so? Yeah it's the same thing, if you don't hate the product but hate the capitalist means of obtaining it then there is no distinction and you're being a paternalistic moralizer to say otherwise.
i don't eat cigarettes lol
I talked about this in another thread. Having tobacco companies exist with a profit incentive is bad, since this means they will always want to go out of their way to get as many people addicted to nicotine as possible, since this increases their profits. Hence the marketing, hence the very existence of menthol cigarettes, hence the handing out free samples of menthol cigarettes to kids in black communities in the 50s/60s. This is just scratching the surface of the evil shit tobacco companies have done. Without this profit incentive there simply wouldn't be nearly as many people using tobacco products. I'd expect a socialist society to still have smokers, just a lot less without the incentive to expand the customer base. In the meantime, though, it makes sense to curb tobacco use wherever possible, because it is still killing people today. Full prohibition would likely fail, but policies like plain labels have been shown to work, and I suspect banning menthols will also help, so there's plenty of room to reduce harm.
I agree with this. A socialist society would still have cigarettes but without the need for profit there wouldn't be advertising or marketing to grow their customer base. I think cigarette use would be near zero in 2 generations. Similar thing with vapes.
Not accurate. This is not a prohibition issue. This is focused on limiting the way that capitalists can manipulate people with advertisements and snake oil. Cigarette companies have spent decades saying that menthol cigarettes are more healthy for you. I don't think that any drug should be advertised, but in the US we have drug advertisements on television.
You may say that "We're all adult, we can do we want," but this is naive. This is the same kind of thing that liberals say about wage labor. Liberals say "We're all adults. You don't need a union to protect you." Doing what you want to yourself may be okay, but profiting by exploiting people is not okay. Cigarette companies exploit and manipulate cigarette users in ways that the user may not even understand. Cigarette companies should be obstructed in any way possible.
Being against prohibition does not mean being against business regulation.
You can ban all of that without banning the actual sale of menthols.
Anyone who smokes knows that menthols are worse for you. The urban legends about the added fiberglass or switching to menthols when you have bronchitis to make yourself cough out more crap are both hella common in low income communities where people smoke. Considering how little advertising there is for nicotine nowadays, I must have missed the period where they advertised that menthols were healthier. If anything, the people that smoked them liked them because they were harsher but had a flavor.
Either way, it's been seen over and over that prohibition doesn't work. Ban menthols. People will find a way to dip their cigs in VaporRub or something. Ban vaping. People learn to make their own vape juice and sell it. Ban alcohol and people will brew their own. And then people will get sick even worse than they did from the original substances because these modifications will be completely unregulated.
Oh no I've been TRICKED into smoking!
Sorry, I forgot that you were immune to propaganda.
Propaganda isn't a mind control ray.
Propaganda is peepee poopoo.
I agree that smoking shouldn't be banned and that propaganda isn't a mind control ray, but fucking hell did cigarette advertisments work well. They worked so well that even though they're mostly banned, the effects are still rippling through our society via generational transmission.
Cigarettes have lore to them in working class communities. Everyone has a brand they smoke and it becomes a part of your identity. More than anything else I can think of except maybe a car. I know dozens of people with Camel Cash stories they got from their grandparents and shit.
So yeah, the marketing worked insanely well. It helped that the product was addictive, but I really don't think it would have been the same without the pervasiveness of the advertisement and branding.
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This is not a prohibition. It's a business regulation. Make your own menthols if you want.
Alcohol is already extremely regulated in very similar ways. There are very strict guidelines on how alcohol is made and sold.
You already admitted in another post that you oppose the ban because you smoke menthol cigarettes yourself and don't want to be inconvenienced. You don't care that cigarette companies exploit people. You don't care that cigarette companies prey on black communities. You just don't want a tiny inconvenience in your life.
Read the article by the FDA. According to their research, the ban of the sale of menthol cigarettes is predicted to prevent the deaths of 633,000 people, including 237,000 African Americans. To you, a tiny inconvenience is more important than the lives of 633,000 people. Then you say that it's entirely their fault, as if it not possible that people were deceived, manipulated, and exploited.
This is a liberal mindset to think that consumption of a commodity is simply a relationship between the consumer and the commodity. The commodity is a relationship between the consumer and the producer. You are doing commodity fetishism. The menthol cigarette sale ban breaks this relationship. You can still roll your own menthol cigarettes.
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Cigarette prohibition would work as well as alcohol and marijuana prohibition have worked. It's totally beyond the pale of reasonable policy suggestions.
Now if we want to talk about changing warning labels (CW: nasty shit), or regulating away tobacco marketing, or making it less convenient to consume, that's more in the realm of something we should consider.
I believe black leaders led the 1994 crime bill too. This is a pattern. (See: Pete Buttchug, Obama, Copmala, etc.)
This claim is wildly inaccurate. Some black politicians may have supported it at the time. Several articles says that the black politicians were pressured into supporting it. The bill was introduced by Jack Brooks, drafted by Joe Biden, and signed into law by Bill Clinton. The bill was based on Bill Clinton's campaign promise to be tough on crime. It was not lead by black leaders.
Good to know. I was just remembering off the top of my head.
? Why banning only menthols hurt specifically black people?
As others have said about the black community and menthol cigs. This has to be the reason why Biden's doing it, because he's a fucking segregationist.
It's gonna be some logic like "black people have poorer health outcomes in the US so we are banning menthols to get them to stop smoking ." Like some actually woke segregation shit.
Exactly.
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Is there any actual evidence that Black people smoke more menthols compared to other people or is it just a stereotype?
Anecdotally when I sold cigarettes at a gas station black people generally were more likely to by menthol. I wasn't aware of the stereotype at the time so it's at least a little unbiased.
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:capitalist-woke:
That last sentence. Somebody got paid for that idea instead of laughed out of the marketing department
Do they measure the brain pan too?
Thank you!
this 2011 paper on menthol smoking from roughly 2004-2008 had this to say:
There was a clear black vs. nonblack menthol usage on the graph on page 4; most other race/ethnic groups were 8% max.
The non-menthol cigarette usage was almost the exact opposite; roughly 20% usage among whites and 3-4% among black people.
I think the statistics are a little bullshit to be honest (I saw this cited by a .org site attributing to it data that is not in this paper) but I think there is definitely a racial divide in menthol cigarette habits
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Menthols do infinitely more damage to black people. wtf. This is probably the only good thing the Biden administration will do.
Are black people who smoke menthols going to stop smoking, or reduce their consumption? Or will they just switch to other cigarettes? If there's some research suggesting that people would rather not smoke at all than smoke something besides menthols, maybe this will do something, but I would be surprised to see those results.
Have you considered reading the FDA's ban press release?
Surprising, but yeah, that changes my opinion on this.
Menthols are literally more addictive and more carcinogenic. Simply banning their production will reduce death even if every menthol smoker switched to regular tobacco.