Photo by Sara Kurfeß
Some conservatives think they’ve found a slick new way to keep straying African-American voters from returning to the Democratic fold: Attack the Biden administration’s proposed ban on menthol cigarettes as a crackdown on African-American consumer “rights” and “freedom” – and an assault on Black “pride.”
It sounds far-fetched – isn’t cigarette smoking a major public health hazard that affects Blacks disproportionately? It is, but African-American smokers, especially men, do favor menthol-flavored cigarettes by a wide margin. About 85% of Black smokers smoke brands like Newport, compared to just 30% of non-Hispanic White smokers (and 43% of smokers overall). For many African-Americans, smoking menthol cigarettes has become an emblem of Black inner-city culture. Indeed, for Black men especially – far more than Black women, whose smoking prevalence rates are actually lower than those for White women – it’s a way of projecting racial defiance while cultivating an image of “cool.”
Consider the data: While the rate of cigarette smoking has fallen sharply among most ethnic groups in recent years, low-income Blacks are still puffing away. Blacks in urban settings like Manhattan and surrounding boroughs have the nation’s highest smoking rates though they can scarcely afford the rising price of tobacco products – often consuming up to a third of household income – to say nothing of tobacco’s harmful health effects, including heart disease, strokes, emphysema and cancer. Menthol has been shown to accentuate rates of smoking, while enhancing nicotine intake, making Black cigarette smoking practices especially addictive and dangerous.
Why do so many African-Americans still smoke in the face of the obvious health dangers? The same reason they might engage in other self-harming behaviors, including illegal drug use and gun violence. It’s a negative survival strategy that can ease the pain and chaos of racial oppression, while enhancing a false sense of self-esteem. But there’s another element at play with smoking: unusually aggressive mass marketing by tobacco companies like North Carolina-based R.J. Reynolds – the manufacturer of Newports – that deliberately targets African-American consumers, especially males, with glitzy Black-oriented advertising campaigns, exploiting Black vulnerabilities – for a buck.
Most tobacco companies are under siege thanks to well-documented research and lawsuits that have forced them to admit that their products aren’t safe. But flavored tobacco products still hold a lingering appeal, especially among young first-time smokers who typically try flavored cigarettes as their entree into the forbidden joys of tobacco use. And for some young underaged Black consumers, especially, smoking menthol cigarettes is an act of defiance and can serve as a rite of passage to some version of Black adulthood.
The FDA has enjoyed considerable success over the years in getting nearly all flavored cigarettes banned, but it’s gotten virtually nowhere with menthol. And it’s not just due to opposition from the tobacco industry. R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco companies have also managed to enlist a number of Black civil rights and privacy groups – including local chapters of the ACLU – into their lobbying campaigns. Who are these groups? One of the most prominent is Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, which has spearheaded anti-menthol ban activism in lower Manhattan as far back as 2019. NAN is now partially funded by R.J. Reynolds, which regularly supplies Sharpton’s group with donations of $15,000 to support his community education seminars that eagerly promote the idea that a menthol ban is an attack on Black self-determination – and an open invitation to police harassment and abuse of illicit street peddlers that often sell individual menthol cigarettes to cash-starved urban smokers, raising the ire of local store owners.
Sharpton got his start in anti menthol ban activism after the death of Eric Garner, who was caught selling cigarettes outside a convenience store in Manhattan in 2014 and accosted and placed in a choke hold when he allegedly resisted arrest, leading to his death from asphyxiation and a heart attack. Sharpton seized upon the incident to demonstrate the perils of banning not just street peddlers, but also the cigarettes they might distribute. He even succeeded in enlisting Garner’s grieving widow as a spokeswoman for his anti-menthol ban campaign, attracting the attention of local ACLU and outreach specialists from R. J. Reynolds, who eagerly agreed to fund Sharpton’s efforts.
As insidious as it may sound, Sharpton’s argument does follow a certain logi. By banning the production and sale of menthol cigarettes, the FDA is only encouraging the proliferation of street peddlers like Garmer and increasing the risk of violent encounters with the police, NAN argues. Moreover, by constraining the legal supply, the ban, the group says, will cause the price of menthol cigarette contraband on the street to go up, forcing poor Blacks to spend even more money to soothe their tobacco fix. The New York chapter of the ACLU has echoed NAN’s argument, seeing the menthol ban as an invasion of Black consumer rights and an infringement on individual freedom. It’s given NAN much greater credibility– and by extension, of course the tobacco lobbyists that eagerly support the group.
On its surface, it’s a familiar argument – one often employed to justify the decriminalization and outright legalization of marijuana. But there’s a key difference. The menthol ban doesn’t actually criminalize menthol cigarette smoking and doesn’t even apply in a formal legal sense to illicit street peddlers. Its focus is on the major cigarette companies like R.J. Reynolds that produce and sell menthol cigarettes commercially to store outlets. It’s really just a public health measure – and a badly needed one – that follows the logic of the FDA’s earlier bans.
Whether the Eric Garners of the world would face stiffer penalties than the ones they might face currently under existing laws is possible – but dubious. In any event, Black menthol cigarette smokers would be free to puff away, though perhaps at high prices, without legal constraint. There’s actually no “criminalization” of individual behavior involved – by African-Americans or by anyone else.
But it’s an election year, of course, and even specious arguments can begin to hold water when the allegiances of Black voters are on the line. The FDA was all set to roll out the new menthol rule in April until the White House decided it might be wise to meet with Sharpton’s group and other members of the anti-ban coalition, much of it funded by the tobacco lobby which wields political influence in key swing states, especially North Carolina. In retrospect, it was probably a mistake. During those meetings, the White House received unexpectedly fierce pushback, with Sharpton’s group warning that he planned to make the proposed ban a campaign issue in New York, where Biden was already beginning to hemorrhage Black support. Within days, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra announced that he was halting the new menthol ban – not just temporarily but “indefinitely.” “It’s clear that there are still more conversations to have, and that will take significantly more time” he noted in a carefully worded press release.
Fast forward four months and some of the heat on the administration with disaffected Black voters is subsiding – but not completely. And that’s where the efforts of two small conservative non-profits – Building for a Better American Future and Americans for Consumer Protection – come in. The two groups, which were previously associated with the presidential campaign of Ron DeSantis, with shadowy funding from at least one conservative Super PAC, have just announced the roll-out of a $10 million digital ad campaign aimed at Black voters in the key swing states – and focused entirely on the menthol ban. The 30-second ad accuses Biden and Harris of being “out of touch” with the day-to-day economic concerns of Black Americans– especially job loss and inflation. “Instead of solving the problems that matter to you, Kamala Harris and D.C. Democrats are coming after your menthol cigarettes,” the narrator says. “We’ve got bigger problems to deal with, and so do Democrats,” says the ad, which includes headlines about the “border crisis” and the “fentanyl crisis” displayed on the screen.
Some analysts are skeptical that the ad has the potential to influence many Black voters. When the two group’s first tested out their new ad in South Carolina during the Democratic primary last February, they found that most of the state’s voters supported the menthol ban. Still, a significant share of Black voters responded positively to messaging that suggested that the ban would “criminalize” legal activity by Blacks and also fuel police abuses. The groups have also run the same messaging in selected congressional districts, though the results of those efforts are unknown. Apparently, they’re satisfied enough with the results to try a much larger roll-out in the swing states, knowing that razon-thin shifts in Black voting could ultimately tilt the balance in November.
Anti-smoking activists, joined by the NAACP, are appalled at the activities of Sharpton’s group and the ACLU. NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson has blasted their efforts publicly. “Tobacco use has been a serious health crisis in the African American community,” Johnson said last February. “The fact that every flavor has been banned, except the one flavor that research shows is more attractive to African Americans shows that the industry has created a discriminatory practice against the African American community.” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, the city’s first female mayor, and a close African-American ally of VP Kamala Harris, has even agreed to appear on camera in ads sponsored by the Campaign for a Tobacco-Free Future to drum up more support for the menthol ban.
But the Harris campaign isn’t taking any chances. So far, it hasn’t taken a position on the ban, and sources say it’s not planning to take a position until the election is over. That may sound like smart politics but with early voting starting shortly, in states like North Carolina, where R.J. Reynolds has its base, Harris & Co. may not have much choice but to speak out on the issue, especially as the new conservative ad campaign gathers force.
Nearly 50,000 African-Americans die annually from menthol-related deaths, according to the American Lung Association – and their numbers are growing. Three years of foot dragging on this issue have already proven deadly for the Democratic party’s core constituency. Harris, who prides herself on her progressive health platform, with special concern for eliminating ethnic and racial health disparities, needs to step up. Staying “cool” on menthol, while Trump and his campaign allies blow hot, isn’t really an option.
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