Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

UPDATE

John,

One year ago today, the FDA announced that it was proposing rules to prohibit menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars – products the tobacco industry has intentionally marketed to kids, Black Americans and other communities at enormous cost in health and lives. These rules represent truly historic action to protect kids from tobacco addiction, advance health equity and save hundreds of thousands of lives.

We're working hard to ensure the FDA issues final rules by its own deadline of August 2023.

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Because of the profound benefit to our nation’s health, the FDA has an obligation to finalize and implement these rules with utmost urgency.

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The elimination of menthol cigarettes in particular will have enormous benefits for our nation’s health, especially among Black Americans:

• It will save hundreds of thousands of lives. Researchers estimate that prohibiting menthol cigarettes would save up to 654,000 lives within 40 years, including the lives of 255,000 Black Americans [[link removed]]. Black Americans represent over one-third of the lives that would be saved.

• It will reduce and even eliminate health disparities. Black Americans currently die at higher rates from tobacco-related diseases like lung cancer, heart disease and stroke. A recent analysis by researchers at the Council on Foreign Relations found that a ban on menthol cigarettes would eliminate the disparity in lung cancer death rates between Black Americans and other U.S. racial and ethnic groups within 5 years – 25 years sooner than it would otherwise happen [[link removed]].

For these and other reasons, the FDA’s plan is supported by a wide range of organizations, scientists and elected officials – including Black civil rights and public health organizations [[link removed]] and members of the Congressional Black Caucus [[link removed]] . A coalition of more than 100 public health, social justice, medical, parent, community and other organizations voiced strong support [[link removed]] in comments submitted to the FDA.

Not surprisingly, the tobacco industry is once again putting profits before lives and going all-out to fight these rules. In particular, the industry is peddling false claims that banning menthol cigarettes will subject Black Americans to more law enforcement abuse.

The FDA has made it crystal clear that the industry’s claims are false: The rules will apply to manufacturers and retailers; they will not make it illegal for individuals to possess or use these products.

We cannot allow the tobacco industry to cynically exploit the legitimate need for police reform so it can continue to prey on Black Americans with menthol cigarettes.

Reynolds American, manufacturer of the best-selling menthol brand Newport, has been particularly shameless.

An investigation [[link removed]] by The Los Angeles Times and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism documented Reynolds’ funding of Black lobbyists and organizations to oppose laws prohibiting menthol cigarettes and stoke fears about criminalization. A prominent Black pastor and civil rights leader in Detroit said he was offered more than $200,000 from Reynolds to oppose a ban on menthol cigarettes [[link removed]] – an offer he declined.

The Biden Administration and the FDA deserve immense credit for standing up to the tobacco industry and proposing this bold, lifesaving policy. The faster these rules are finalized and implemented, the faster we can stop the tobacco industry’s lethal targeting of Black and other communities, the more kids we will prevent from smoking, and the more lives we will save.

As always, thank you for standing with us.

–John

John Bowman
Executive Vice President, U.S. Programs

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