With the Food and Drug Administration’s long-delayed proposal to ban menthol cigarettes underway, the need for greater public health awareness about this deadly product has never been more critical. Menthol cigarettes are responsible for 1.5 million new smokers, 157,000 smoking-related premature deaths, and 1.5 million life-years lost among African Americans between 1980 and 2018.
Why Menthol?
The cooling mint flavor of menthol makes cigarettes more appealing to teens and young adults new to smoking. These smokers are more likely to become addicted and to continue smoking, putting them at greater risk of suffering the severe and life-threatening health effects of tobacco. The tobacco companies targeting black communities for decades, a fact that cannot be ignored. Until the early 1960s, the tobacco industry focused on college campuses for marketing campaigns, but with increased cigarette advertising regulation, they began targeting Black communities. They placed a greater emphasis on urban billboards, boosted advertising in Black periodicals, and used popular African-American cultural icons like musicians, athletes, and actors as faces of the menthol brand. They also cultivated influencers in the community to spread their message – barbers, bellhops, taxi drivers, and community leaders – to build brand loyalty. As time passed, the cigarette industry shifted away from health appeals and toward aspirational marketing. This was based on the industry’s belief that menthol cigarettes, disguised as healthy and vital, would provide a sense of security to anxious smokers. This message was incredibly potent in the Black community, where economic and social anxiety was endemic. Today, nearly 9 in 10 Black smokers smoke menthol cigarettes. This results from the tobacco industry’s decades of pernicious marketing in Black communities, including appropriating culture and sponsoring events to build brand loyalty. As the FDA considers a ban on menthol cigarettes, Truth Initiative research shows that most adults (56%) support it.
Menthol’s Impact on Black Health
Refusing menthol cigarettes would help reduce tobacco use, save lives, and increase health equity. The tobacco industry’s long-standing strategy of targeting Black communities with menthol for profits has proven harmful. For decades, Big Tobacco profiled Black neighborhoods, used appropriative culture in advertising campaigns, and flooded Black community markets with menthol cigarettes to get smokers hooked on the minty flavors. As a result, 90% of Black smokers use menthol. The 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act banned cherry, vanilla, clove, and other flavor additives but left menthol cigarettes legal, allowing the tobacco industry to continue its insidious marketing. Menthol cigarettes are a critical on-ramp to smoking, and more than half of youth who start smoking begin with menthols. As a result, most middle and high school smokers in Black communities smoke menthol. Removing menthol products would help prevent these smokers from becoming addicted to tobacco and lead them to quit. Due to their heavy use of menthol cigarettes, African Americans disproportionately experience harm from smoking, including disease and death. The table below shows that if a menthol ban were implemented, the estimated harm from menthol-related smoking initiation, premature deaths, and excess life years lost would be much lower for this population despite them representing only 12% of the US general population.
Menthol’s Impact on Black Culture
Black communities and youth have been targeted with ads for menthol cigarettes since the tobacco industry’s mid-20th-century heyday. The film Black Lives, Black Lungs documents how tobacco companies gave away free cigarettes in Black neighborhoods, supported local media dependent on industry advertising revenue, and wooed organizations and cultural events to spread the gospel of mentholated smokes as hip and new. The industry’s tactics paid off – a 2009 ban on additives stopped tobacco companies from producing cherry, vanilla, and clove flavors while leaving menthol on the market. Today, menthol cigarettes remain one of the primary cigarette brands attracting Black smokers and children. A recent study found that menthol cigarettes increase youth and young adult smoking initiation, increase addiction, and reduce success with quitting. It’s no wonder that menthol is one of the leading causes of early death among African Americans.
Menthol’s Impact on Black Youth
As the tobacco industry faced mounting public health scrutiny in the 1990s, it turned to celebrity endorsements. Menthol enables more youth and young adults to initiate smoking, increases nicotine addiction, and decreases success in quitting. This disproportionately impacts Black communities with higher tobacco-related disease and death rates. The fact that menthol tobacco is more prevalent among Black smokers is not random but the result of decades of deliberate marketing to the community. Low-income and racial or ethnic minority neighborhoods are exposed to twice as many cigarette ads, including more for menthol products. Kids in these communities are likelier to see menthol smoke billboards near their schools. The FDA’s announcement that it will ban the sale of mentholated cigarettes is a long-awaited step that could save hundreds of thousands of lives. To do otherwise would be to disservice the millions of Black families negatively impacted by this toxic and addictive product.