The Biden administration plans to ban menthol cigarettes in the United States. Anti-tobacco and public health activists in the country have long campaigned for this demand. For decades, blacks in the country have been the main consumers of menthol cigarettes.
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), at least 85 percent of black smokers smoke menthol cigarettes. Studies have shown that menthol cigarettes are much more addictive than regular cigarettes.
Delmont Jefferson, director of an organization working on black health and equal rights, is one of the activists. He told the Washington Post that such a decision was a victory for blacks and people of all races. “We’ve been talking about this since the 1980s,” Jefferson said. We have told the cigarette companies that we blacks do not want to be the victims of your advertisements.
However, cigarette manufacturers find it unreasonable to view menthol cigarettes in isolation.
