The argument against banning menthols that I’ve read was that banning menthols infantilizes black people and takes away their right to autonomy. That feels like an attempt at shifting discourse away from the tobacco industry who created a slightly more addictive cigarette.
This is a subject I know a bit about.
It is commonly felt that menthol makes cigarettes more comfortable to smoke. This was particularly important for cigarettes that used cheaper (and harsher) tobacco. However, it also allowed menthol cigarettes to be sold for less money. This lead to a popularity of menthol cigarettes in the black communities in the US in the 40s and 50s, when extreme racism drove much of US politics and economics, and thus a perpetually underemployed and underpaid underclass.
So then the civil rights war was started, and saw the emergence of a self-concept in some of the black communities of being an accepted part of American middle class culture. You remember the Jefferson’s theme song Movin’ On Up? That was the sentiment and the phrase used at the time. Kool cigarettes came out with ads in the black communities with phrases like “Move up to the cool taste of Kool” and crap like that. One company actually tried to launch a menthol brand called Uptown. Menthols are (or were) also popular in low income white communities, but there they had to compete with brands like Marlboro and Camel, and could carry a trashy image, as it were.
Anyway, it’s the tobacco companies making the argument about infantilizing the community. Black social and political leaders stand pretty uniformly behind the legislation, because of the toll the industry takes on the black communities.
And in any case, it’s legally no different than the government banning candy flavored cigarettes (which it can do). Menthol just had a carve out for a bit.
The government can ban tobacco, but it’s undeniably tyrannical to ban a drug because you don’t like the consequences people are choosing for themselves.
That’s certainly a valid opinion, but I think you run into a problem when the word “tyrannical” is supposed to apply to taking measures to limit the flavors being added to a highly addictive and health damaging substance, and the government of North Korea.
Edit: Also, the government does not currently have the regulatory authority to ban tobacco. It can set limits on additives and regulate nicotine content, and it has the ability to regulate the format and forums of advertising campaigns, and can set restrictions on purchase age or require health warnings, but each one of those things is fought tooth and nail by the tobacco industry in the courts.
They banned menthols where I live. They now sell cigarettes with hollow filters and menthol filters that fit said slots separately.
It’s insane that cigarettes are still sold in the first place.
You would rather have people smoking black market sigarettes that might be even more toxic than the regular kind?I also hate big tobacco but banning sigarettes will just replace a regulated market with a unregulated one.
I’d push for you to have to get a license to buy tobacco products and only issue that license to current users. (Much like a medical MJ license).
Just a small amount of hassle to hopefully prevent new smokers.
Ecigs make your point. Smoking was almost eliminated with millennials, gen z and younger are addicts because of that evil product.
We’ve seen over and over that Prohibition doesn’t work and often backfires, but as someone who lost a father to a stubborn tobacco addiction, I’m in favor of anything to nudge people to quit. Make tobacco absolutely suck to use. Ban flavors. Tax the shit out of it and subsidize nicotine gum+patches. Ban filters, which don’t actually make them safer (they actually allow smokers to inhale the contaminants more deeply) and fill our environment with plastic pollution. Get rid of all branding on boxes.
Prohibition doesn’t work, but I would like to see limits placed on where they can be sold, just like we have in many places with legalized cannabis. Make them only able to be sold in a dispensary. Make it so they can’t be sold within a certain distance from schools. Continue to tax the shit out of them. The only nicotine products that should be sellable outside of tobacco dispensaries should be products aimed specifically at cessation such as nicotine gum and nicotine patches.
Vapes should also be similarly regulated, and I say this as a person who vapes. I go to a vape shop for my juice and supplies. I vape a refillable mod, not a disposable pod thing, which are sadly so popular nowadays. I am aiming to cease vaping soon. (Last time I quit nicotine, I was clean for 7 years, but when Roe v Wade was overturned, that night I bought a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of vodka, and went on a bender while wallowing in despair. Not a good time and well, nicotine is hard to kick after even just a few smokes, especially for someone who previously had the habit.)
Anyway. There are controls that would have a positive impact without being full-on prohibition.
Tax the shit out of it
They already are. It’s like $100 a carton here but people still buy them. That’s insane to me. When i quit they were around $20 a carton.
Dat tax revenue though. New Zealand just reversed it’s radical generational smoking ban, because of the money.
For those unaware:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/12/05/menthol-ban-delayed-biden-administration/
“Among smokers who are Black, 81 percent choose menthols, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a far higher rate than for smokers who are White. Top civil rights and health groups have long maintained that the tobacco industry has a history of aggressively marketing to Black communities.”
and:
https://abcnews.go.com/538/biden-losing-support-people-color/story?id=105272263
“Biden started his presidency with an 86 percent average approval rating among Black Americans, higher than any other racial group. But by July 2022, that number was down 23 percentage points, to 63 percent. That said, his approval rating among Black Americans — unlike the other three racial groups we looked at — did mildly increase ahead of the midterm elections. But since early 2023, it has dropped again to 60 percent, the lowest his approval rating has ever been among Black Americans during his presidency.”
From the 2nd link posted above:
“When I sit in focus groups with young Black voters and ask what [Democrats have] done to make their lives better, they’re hard pressed to come up with an answer, despite this administration delivering on much of the Black agenda,” Woodbury said. “That’s the communication challenge that we have a year to overcome.”
Are Republicans any better, though? Granted, Trump did do more for black people since Jefferson /s
They’d probably have more success by only allowing cigarettes that taste like ass. Find this generation’s Barney, have him smoke the ass cigarettes and nobody will want to try them
Man, depending on how old you are there’s 3 or 4 Barneys I can think of that you probably mean and none of them make sense to me in this comment
Yeah I’m wondering too
Barney the dinosaur (Kids TV character)
Barney Stinson (How I met your mother)
Barney Gumble (The Simpsons)
??
I mean the dinosaur, obviously his mouth is too big for ordinary cigarettes but the important thing is nobody wants to be anything like him and I think that’s a useful trait for applications like this
