Gawker: menthols

Is It Racist To Ban Menthols?

Hamilton Nolan — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:36:22 EDT

Should menthol cigarettes be banned? From a public health standpoint, shit yea. It would be best for all of us if the only cigarettes available were unattractively packaged, harsh-tasting, and unwieldy. As a Kool smoker, though, I have mixed feelings. You know who else does? Members of the Congressional Black Caucus who receive bundles of cash from the tobacco industry! The fact that "75 percent of black smokers choose mentholated brands" means that the current battle over whether or not to ban them goes to issues even deeper than their sweet, sweet mentholated taste. Things at stake: billions of dollars in revenue, hundreds of millions in marketing campaigns, racial tension, and how happy cigarette companies are to kill you in exchange for money!

The current bill in Congress would ban "flavored" cigarettes, but exempt menthols. The Black Caucus is an important player because they stand for the black community—the most enthusiastic consumers of menthols—and they've been wooed big time by tobacco companies.

Philip Morris over the years has been one of the biggest contributors to the caucus’s nonprofit Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. That financial support, in some years exceeding $250,000, and lesser amounts at times from other cigarette makers, has been the reason some critics perceived an alliance between big tobacco and African-American members of Congress, some of whom were willing to help fend off antitobacco efforts.

Among them, some critics have said, was Charles B. Rangel of New York. Although he supported some antitobacco initiatives, until the last few years Mr. Rangel staunchly opposed federal tobacco tax increases. He has said his stand was based on the disproportionate effect of excise taxes on the poor, not the thousands of dollars he received in tobacco industry political action committee donations.

Way to use logic in order to help your constituents into an early grave, Charlie Rangel! But a lot of CBC members are in fact in favor of banning menthol, many because of the fact that it disproportionately kills black people. Tobacco companies that currently support the bill, though, would probably oppose it if menthols got added.

It looks like menthols will stay legal, for now. Awesome for the black community as well as race car drivers!

[NYT]

Keep Your Laws Off Our Kools!

Hamilton Nolan — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:49:48 EDT

Seven former US health secretaries have signed a letter calling on the government to ban menthol cigarettes, which have been exempted from an upcoming bill banning "flavored" cigarettes. Congress, thankfully, isn't backing them on this one. Do you know what we smoked before Kools? Beedies. They're even worse! Soon, shady Astroturf groups quietly financed by Big Tobacco will come together with unscrupulous hustlers posing as representatives of the black community to say: Hands off our bodies, government! [NYT]

Menthol Cigarettes Are Not 'Flavored,' Says Dr. Kool Newport

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 13 May 2008 10:06:30 EDT

How popular are menthol cigarettes? Popular enough to reverse logic. The government is set to pass a bill that will ban "flavored" cigarettes, but menthols will be excluded. Because menthol, of course, is not a flavor. What menthol is is close to $20 billion in sales for the tobacco industry. As well as an important part of African-American culture! Tobacco companies advertise menthol brands disproportionately to minority communities, and it obviously works, although nobody really knows why. What we do know is that this bill is perfect—it protects my precious Kools, while saving America from the strawberry menace:

"My recollection is that we were able to eliminate the use of flavored cigarettes, strawberry, mocha, and all this stuff that is clearly targeted at young kids and to start them smoking tobacco," Mike DeWine, the former Ohio senator [said].

It's about time we got rid of those mocha cigarettes that all the kids are smoking these days. Of course, we'll still have this problem:

Scientists who study smoking have identified various disparities in the health of black and white smokers. National Cancer Institute data shows that African-American men get lung cancer at a rate 50 percent higher than white men — a gap that most scientists say cannot be fully explained by historically higher rates of smoking by black men.
One theory suggests that menthol in cigarettes, by providing an additional pleasurable sensory cue, reinforces addiction.

[NYT]

But let's be fair, those crying racial discrimination in advertising: how do you explain THIS?