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Richard Boykin is a former Cook County, Illinois, commissioner. He wrote this column for the Chicago Tribune.
Perhaps fretting political backlash from Black voters in November, President Joe Biden has indefinitely delayed the Food and Drug Administration’s recommended ban on menthol-flavored cigarettes. Biden fails to understand this issue is not about the left or right. This is a moral issue that requires leadership to do what is right.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, menthol-flavored cigarettes enhance the effects of nicotine on the brain — making the product highly addictive. Tobacco companies have heavily marketed menthol-flavored cigarettes in the Black community, and they have targeted young people.
“In 2023, 40.4 percent of middle school and high school students who currently smoked cigarettes reported using menthol cigarettes,” according to the CDC. The CDC also notes that 70 percent of Black adult smokers age 18 to 34 smoke menthols compared with 39 percent of white adults in the same age group.
Tobacco-related illness in the United States costs more than $300 billion each year, and it is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year, the CDC reported in 2021. Kristina Hamilton, Illinois advocacy director for the American Lung Association, notes menthol cigarettes claim 45,000 Black lives every year.
Biden is struggling to gain the support of Black men, according to a recent survey. Wall Street Journal polling from last month found that 30 percent of Black men in seven swing states said they were either definitely or probably going to vote for former President Donald Trump. In 2020, the former president received just 12 percent of the vote from Black men nationwide. The former president is also doing well with Black women, according to the WSJ poll. This has Biden’s campaign team in full-blown panic mode.
In an apparent effort to pander to Black men, Biden recently delivered the commencement address at Morehouse College, a historically Black men’s school. I imagine famed alumnus the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is turning over in his grave knowing that Biden is putting politics ahead of health. Perhaps Biden will be reminded of what King said regarding courage: “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
The president, while addressing the news media regarding anti-Israel protests on college campuses, said: “This isn’t a moment for politics; it’s a moment for clarity.” The same logic must be applied to the ban on menthol cigarettes. This is personal for me, as my mother passed away last year from lung cancer, and my father is one of the more than 18 million people who are addicted to menthol cigarettes.
Biden’s decision-making breeds cynicism among voters and may have the unintended consequence of people staying home on Election Day. As for those civil rights groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, who argue that a ban would unfairly target Black smokers, to me their argument lacks credibility. The proposed rule targets manufacturing and distribution — not Black smokers.
Black leaders must stop blatantly selling out Black people. It is worse than Judas selling out Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. For Sharpton to suggest that a ban may cost Biden Black votes is unconscionable. Sharpton and others have given Biden unwise counsel.
Black voters actually respect authenticity and courage to do what is right. It is insulting to think that delivering a speech at Morehouse College will move Biden’s anemic polling numbers among Black men. In 2009, then-President Barack Obama had an opportunity to ban menthol-flavored cigarettes, but he demurred. But as King said: “The time is always right to do what is right.”
I urge the president to follow the science and the lead of multiple states that have banned menthol-flavored cigarettes.
Massachusetts and California have fully banned the sale of flavored tobacco products including menthol cigarettes. A ban on menthol could save up to 650,000 lives over the next 40 years, including 255,000 Black Americans, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids reports. Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the Illinois Legislature should enact a full ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products. This is a matter of life and death. The city of Evanston has already banned the sale of flavored tobacco products including menthol cigarettes.
Biden and his advisers cannot effectively govern if they are all consumed by polls. Biden must see that Black lives matter more than votes. The pain of families watching a loved one die from a preventable tobacco-related disease is unbearable. The president’s dithering on this question will surely cost more people their lives.
I urge all Americans who are concerned about tobacco companies targeting minorities and young people to call the White House to urge a ban on menthol-flavored cigarettes.