It’s hard to believe that over 21 years have passed since R.J. Reynolds planned to test market their new menthol brand, Uptown, aimed directly at the African American smoker in urban Philadelphia. It was non-filtered, mentholated, high tar and high nicotine — just what the black community did not need when they were already fighting to survive rising tobacco-related diseases and death rates.
As U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, I spoke out then, criticizing R.J. Reynolds for targeting African Americans with their advertising that made menthol cigarettes seem so suave, so hip, when in reality, they are so deadly.
The public outcry forced R.J. Reynolds to scuttle their new brand, but that didn’t stop blacks from smoking menthols. Today, of those African Americans who smoke, 80 percent smoke menthol cigarettes. As a result, hundreds of thousands have died from smoking-related diseases.
Fast forward to 2011. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been advised by their own panel of expert scientists that a menthol ban would benefit public health.
On May 12, the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) published new research that indicated not only could a ban prevent up to 600,000 smoking-related premature deaths by 2050, a third of those from the African American community, but a ban is supported by a majority of Americans (56 percent), particularly African Americans (76 percent) who were found to be disproportionately affected.
In an independent National Cancer Institute study, researchers concluded that if menthol cigarettes were no longer sold, 39 percent of all menthol smokers, including nearly half of all African American menthol smokers (47 percent), said they would quit using tobacco completely rather than switch brands.
Perhaps most disturbing are the new findings that conclude that menthol lures more youth to start smoking and though more menthol smokers try to stop, fewer are successful at quitting, especially African Americans.
What are we waiting for? Despite the recommendations to ban menthol when there was an opportunity to do it, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act banned all other candy flavorings in tobacco but Congress failed to act on menthol.
R.J. Reynolds and Lorillard, taking their cue from the well-worn pages of the tobacco industry playbook, are now back at it, challenging the science and alleging in court that the FDA’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee “lacks fair balance,” a charge that is void of integrity and credibility but will no doubt buy more time to sell more menthol cigarettes and sell short more lives.
I and the public health community call on the FDA to ban menthol in tobacco products before more Americans lose their lives. Tobacco is not an equal-opportunity killer, and the link between smoking menthol cigarettes and snuffing out African American lives cannot be overemphasized, nor can it continue to be overlooked in order to fatten the profits of the tobacco companies.
Dr. Louis W. Sullivan was U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services from 1989 to 1993.
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