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national politics & policies

Pick Your Poison

Are cigarettes containing menthol-​flavored tobacco racist?

Follow the science! It is an absolute fact that those menthol smokes “disproportionately addict — and kill — Black Americans.”

The reason? “Only 29 percent of White smokers choose menthol, as opposed to 85 percent of African American smokers, according to a National Survey on Drug Use and Health,” The Washington Post explains, “fueled by more than half a century of Big Tobacco aggressively marketing them specifically to Black Americans.”

Catch that causation claim? The black-​and-​white difference between racial group affinity with this flavor is the fault of cunning (white?) advertising execs with a racist penchant for hooking unsuspecting blacks. 

Never addressed — or apparently even considered? The possibility that tobacco companies are targeting their promotional efforts in relation to the obvious preferences of their customers.

It is in the news because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration must officially address, by April 29, a formal regulatory petition “demanding menthol cigarettes be banned.”

Support for outlawing menthol-​flavoring based on racial justice rationales meets plenty of opposition based on racial … sanity.

“Opposition,” notes The Post, “come[s] from GOP and Democratic officials as well as civil rights groups.” 

The idea of providing another police enforcement flashpoint by outlawing an addictive substance used overwhelmingly by blacks seems a non-​starter. “We do not think kids should be put in jail or given a ticket for selling menthol,” offered Rev. Al Sharpton.* “You’re going to give the police another reason to engage our people?”

“Banning a certain type of cigarettes because black people tend to favor them is stupid and patronizing,” one Post reader commented. “Either have the courage of your convictions and ban all cigarettes (lol) or leave this alone.”

Leave us alone.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


* Sharpton acknowledged to The Post that his National Action Network has received funding from “R.J. Reynolds, which makes Newport cigarettes, the most popular menthol cigarette and the No. 2 U.S. cigarette brand overall.”


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national politics & policies

Won But Not Over

The Office on Smoking at Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is not telling the truth about the war on tobacco use.

In an article at Reason, Jacob Sullum convincingly argues that the CDC persists on portraying tobacco use amongst teens as in crisis.

According to the CDC, past progress has been “erased.”

Looked at one way, the stats are alarming: “The share of high school students who reported using e‑cigarettes in the previous month jumped from 11.7 percent in 2017 to 20.8 percent in 2018,” Sullum summarizes. 

Sounds bad, eh?

But Sullum noticed something: 

  1. the increase tobacco use is wholly the result of increased e‑cigarette usage, which is less harmful than smoking;
  2. very few of the increased number of vapers actually vape regularly, with less than 6 percent vaping daily; and
  3. smoking has dropped dramatically, with “past-​month cigarette smoking among high school students [falling] from 28.5 percent to 5.8 percent.”

So, why isn’t the CDC proclaiming victory?

Well, there is something called “Spencer’s Law.” Taken from Herbert Spencer’s essay “From Freedom to Bondage,” it goes like this: 

“The degree of public concern and anxiety about a social problem or phenomenon varies inversely as to its real or actual incidence.” 

“In plain English,” philosopher Stephen Davies explains, “this means that when a social problem is genuinely widespread and severe it will attract little notice or discussion. It will only become the object of attention, concern, and controversy precisely when it is in decline and its severity is diminishing.”

Why?

In the CDC’s case, could it have something to do with unlikely funding for a war already won?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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From a photo by Airman 1st Class Brittany Perry

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