Lawmakers push government to ban flavored tobacco products
DELMARVA – It’s no secret that tobacco products can put your health in jeopardy, however, questions continue to come up about an ongoing delay to ban flavored tobacco. Delaware Lawmakers are calling on the FDA to immediately put a ban on menthol cigarettes.
“Its not a surprise that the tobacco industry does whatever it can to make money,” Wicomico County NAACP President Monica Brooks said.
Delaware’s US lawmakers are proposing a ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars after continuous data shows a history targeting two different communities.
“Senator Carper and I are joining more than twenty of our colleagues in the house of representatives in calling on the FDA to finally move ahead and finalize a rule that would ban menthol flavoring in cigarettes,” Senator Chris Coons said.
Senator Chris Coons tells us the flavored tobacco marketing and distribution is aimed at youth, ages twelve to eighteen, and that menthol cigarettes and cigars are sold more often in black neighborhoods.
“If you look at where menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars are advertised, how they are advertised and where they are sold, where they are distributed, there is a clear targeting effort that recognizes that they are preferred amongst new smokers and in the Black American community.”
Senator Coons says many organizations and community health advocates have stressed concerns for both young Americans and Black Americans to have menthol banned, and not just in the State of Delaware.
Monica Brooks says there has been a history between Big Tobacco and Black Communities.
“In the fifties, only 10% of black smokers use menthol.”
“Now, that number is 85% of menthol smokers are black.”
She says a result of continued menthol tobacco use causes increased risk for stroke and heart disease.
“The major cause of preventable deaths from black Americans is tobacco use,” Brooks said. “That happened through targeting everything from sponsoring events, to freebies at festivals, to targeting our youth.”
Wicomico County NAACP President Monica Brooks applauds Delaware Lawmakers for pushing the FDA to ban flavored tobacco like menthol.
She says the move could help keep the youth and black communities healthy.
