Michael A. Nutter: Menthol ban is long overdue

Call me old-fashioned, but even in this Trump era of “alternative facts,” I’m still a stickler for things like details and truth.

Many years ago, when I was on the City Council, we worked to pass a law that made almost all of Philadelphia’s workplaces smoke-free. At the time, the tobacco industry and its allies promised that if we passed the law, the city’s restaurants and bar business would be decimated. Lies like these managed to fool too many people, and the passage of the law was delayed by several years.

But today, it’s hard to find anyone in Philadelphia who would argue that making our restaurants and bars smoke-free has been bad for business.

Well, it’s a new year — and while the lies are new, the liars are the same. But we can’t let them fool us again.

This time, the tobacco industry and its allies are lying about menthol cigarettes.

» READ MORE: Anti-tobacco advocates want Philly to ban sales of all flavored smoking products

For years, public health advocates have been calling on the Food and Drug Administration to ban menthol flavoring in cigarettes. The ban would primarily affect Black smokers, 85% of whom smoke menthol cigarettes. (In comparison, only 30% of white smokers use menthols.) Every year, 9,000 Black men die of lung cancer in the U.S., the highest death rate of any other group.

Not surprisingly, the tobacco industry has pushed back on the ban; according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, menthols made up more than one-third of all U.S. cigarette sales in 2021. To try and block menthol bans, Big Tobacco has cozied up to some civil rights groups, who have argued — on behalf of the tobacco industry — that a ban would contribute to overpolicing in the Black community.

Still, reason prevailed, and the menthol ban was supposed to be issued at the end of December. Then, last month, the Biden administration delayed the implementation until at least March.

I’ve fought against misinformation from Big Tobacco before. Let’s start with the facts:

Menthol cigarettes are more addictive. Menthol cools and numbs the throat, masks the harshness of tobacco smoke, and enhances nicotine’s addictive effects on the brain. Menthol makes it easier for kids to start smoking, and it’s harder to quit menthols than regular cigarettes.

The tobacco industry has targeted the Black community with these more deadly, more addictive cigarettes. It has done it so well that I’ve seen some Black leaders say those cigarettes are “ours” and shouldn’t be banned.

Let me be clear: This is absurd. Menthol cigarettes are a plague that has been pushed on the Black community by the tobacco industry.

Menthol cigarettes are a plague.

If marketing a deadly product specifically to Black Americans wasn’t bad enough, now Big Tobacco is trying to push the theory that if President Joe Biden’s FDA goes ahead with the rule to ban menthol, it will hurt him at the ballot box with Black voters.

To use a more polite word than what comes to mind, that is total malarkey.

So, let me get this straight: We are supposed to believe that standing up to one of the most evil industries in America and blocking a product that it has targeted us with for my entire lifetime, killing hundreds of thousands of Black Americans, will somehow anger Black voters so much that they’ll vote for Donald Trump in the next election over Biden? Come on.

That logic is more twisted than a Philly soft pretzel. The tobacco industry has tried to fool people for years — claiming smoking bans will hurt businesses, among other lies — but we can’t let it fool people on menthol cigarettes.

I know President Biden, and I believe he will do the right thing to protect the health of Americans. So, Big Tobacco, get ready. Because this will be the last new year you have to hook more kids on smoking and kill more African Americans — or any of us — with your mentholated product of death.

Michael A. Nutter was a two-term mayor of Philadelphia from 2008 through 2016.