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Is Joe Biden’s menthol cigarettes ban racist? Anti-smoking groups say they affect Blacks more, Internet divided

Anti-smoking groups have long argued that menthol cigarettes contribute to disproportionate health burdens on Black communities and often draw young people into smoking

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the Joe Biden administration on Thursday, April 29, proposed a ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. The proposed ban, as per reports, can take years to implement.

Anti-smoking groups, Reuters reported, have long argued that menthol cigarettes contribute to disproportionate health burdens on Black communities and often draw young people into smoking. Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids President Matthew Myers said the latest move could be the "strongest action" that the United States "has ever taken to drive down the number of kids who start smoking".

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Yet, many people online are calling the move racist. “The menthol cigarette ban is racist,” wrote several Twitter users. “A menthol ban sounds very racist. Especially since they picked Newports, not Camel Crush (the white girl's menthol),” said another Twitter user. 

But not everyone agreed. “Wait… white people are calling the ban on menthol cigs racist…?! It’s racist to ban a product disproportionately marketed to Black folks that’s 100% linked to death?!” asked a Twitter user. “Things that seem racist, but aren’t: A ban on menthol cigarettes,” said another Twitter user.

Is the ban racist or not?

According to a BBC report, American civil rights activist, Baptist minister, talk show host, and politician Al Sharpton has said banning a product that is most popular among African Americans is discriminatory. His argument, and that of others per BBC, is that criminalizing these products may lead to an underground network of buyers and sellers. This may give rise to dangerous interactions between law enforcement and young Black men like the fatal arrest of Eric Garner in 2014 by the New York City police on suspicion of illegally selling loose cigarettes from a pack.

An essay published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a non-profit libertarian think tank, argued that a menthol cigarette ban would perpetuate the racist war on drugs. The essay notes, “On the surface, the debate appears to pit the demands of public health against Big Tobacco and social justice against criminal justice interests. But, at its heart, the debate is about what substance-related policy priorities ought to be. And, since the very beginning of American drug politics, those priorities have been directed by the needs, fears, and values of the white middle class.”

It further explained how smoking today is rare among affluent white populations, and the behavior has been “thoroughly coded as ‘low class’. That is particularly true for menthol smoking. Members of the white middle-class -- the most politically empowered group in America-- see neither smoking nor anti-smoking laws as much of a threat to themselves.”

As per a Washington Post report, however, African American health groups and researchers say it is clear that Black Americans have been disproportionately hurt by these cigarettes. In the 1950s, only about 10 percent of Black smokers used menthol cigarettes. Today, that proportion is more than 85 percent, three times the rate for White smokers.