'If Black lives truly matter, we need to look askance at cigarettes, which disproportionately kill Black people.'
The Food and Drug Administration’s move Thursday to ban menthol cigarettes should have been a moment of unfiltered elation for Mignonne Guy. Instead, she was fuming over the gaslighting that followed.
In an interview with VCU News, she called the proposed ban — which would also prohibit “characterizing” flavors in cigars — “historic and long-overdue action to protect all of our nation’s children, advance health equity and save lives, especially among Black Americans and other populations that have been targeted by the tobacco industry and suffered enormous harm from the predatory marketing of these products.
I grew up in a household where menthol cigarettes were smoked. Kool — a brand that would have a jazz festival named after it — appeared to be the brand of choice. The cooling effect of the menthol made the cigarettes easier to inhale, making for a more pleasant experience. “A menthol ban would impose serious risks,” Sharpton wrote, “including increasing the illegal sale of smuggled, black market menthol cigarettes as well as the street sales of individual menthol cigarettes — ‘loosies’ and in turn place menthol smokers at a significant risk of entering the criminal justice system.”Yes, Eric Garner, after being accused of selling “loosie” cigarettes, died from a chokehold by a New York City police officer in 2014.
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