News FDA Advances Ban on Menthol Cigarettes

[mal3volent]

My understanding is that around the 1960s when the tobacco companies started creating targeted advertising towards black people, they heavily marketed menthol cigarettes as "hip and modern" and "urban". That's how the divide started. The more the advertising worked with blacks, it drove most whites away, and they were happy to stick with their white picket fence suburban non-exotic non-hippy cigs.

 

[DeathIndustrial88]

Exactly. There weren't any societal problems when your DOC was readily and cheaply available from your corner chemists shop. This all changed with alcohol prohibition. Recreational use of other substances skyrocketed, then when prohibition was repealed, racist cunts such as Harry Anslinger suddenly finding themselves out of a job, used the whole reefer madness bollocks to demonise blacks especially, and drugs in general.

Absolutely! Well said!

They were able to count on the ignorance of the masses & use skewed data to get people to fall in line with wanting to remove their own right to try medicines & arrest their fellow neighbors who did so. It's pretty crazy. And even I believed drugs were bad at one point because that's all they teach you growing up. But drugs have offered so many different benefits in so many facets of my life that I'd be lying if I said they hadn't been an integral part of my life experience. To deny and even punish people for even just the sake of wanting to find out for themselves is crazy to me now. Even animals in the wild get high & medicate.


It's like starting a war on everyone who likes to eat dairy. Them casomorphins will get you hooked! It's just absurd.

 

[F.U.B.A.R.]

To get back on topic though, menthol cigarettes have been outlawed in the UK for several years now. There are loopholes of course. Cigars and cigarillos aren't affected. So some manufacturers now wrap their menthol fags in a shitty tobacco leaf so that they quality as cigarillos.

Tbh, I actually agree with the menthol ban. Menthol cigarettes are just a marketing ploy to push their tobacco products on people that otherwise wouldn't use them. I don't include myself in this - I hate that menthol shit. I like my tobacco to taste of tobacco...

 

[DeathIndustrial88]

I think the FDA should back off & take a damn walk.


When I was 16, one of my siblings girlfriend's mom that I stayed with for a week or two gave me some flavored camel cigarettes. I think they were orange cream, mango, raspberry or strawberry & maybe some others, but they were so smooth and delicious. Never thought an artifical taste in a cigarette could taste that smooth & natural. Later on in life I tried to figure out where she got em and why I couldn't find them anywhere. Come to find out, flavored cigarettes had been banned for 'being attractive to children".

I thought it was utterly ridiculous. I saw online that so many other countries have all kinds of different cigarettes that we can't have in the US.

I think we as Americans don't need anyone to tell us we can't have a menthol cigarette. I really hate menthol myself & can't stand it (like FUBAR) but I just don't see the positive benefit in taking it away from some one who does like it or want it. It's like having nanny... what will be next that we can' have no more, you know?

There's a lot of fun fruity flavors & colors in the alcohol aisle, will they come for that too? And if not, why? Technically anyone buying it needs to be of age & show that any way, so we should let adults make the decision if they want a menthol or even if they want a mango flavored camel.

Maybe investing in some ways to help people get off cigarettes would be more productive. I mean the other 7,000 chemicals already in there are already bad & addictive (more than just nicotine), what's a little flavor? lol

EDIT : I just realized that my brother's gf's mom gave me these cigarettes when I was underage, so I guess that kinda defeated where I was going with this story in a way. Hahaha please forgive me though. Shit, my mom started buying me cigarettes at 15 and I didn't even ask her to (long story for another time). Whether flavored or not though, any one can still get em for some one else.

 

[mal3volent]

I'm against the ban. It's absurd to think it will create any significant drop in tobacco use. People who don't want to smoke won't. People who do will.

It is a bit of a racial issue, in that you are downplaying black people's moral agency to choose for themselves what they want to consume. If 70% of menthol smokers are black, this is unfairly forcing that dilemma upon them while leaving everyone else unbothered.

 

[DeathIndustrial88]

The decision should ultimately be up to the people who have to hand over all their money every day to these tobacco companies because they're dependent on them while some one else makes a profit off their dependence.

Banning menthol takes away from consumer choice, but you know that tobacco company can just hike them prices up & up until one day it's 20 bucks for a pack & people will still be coming if they need a damn cigarette. Isn't there a name for something like this? lol

 

[F.U.B.A.R.]

Is it really a racial issue though? Or is it more a case of racist government agencies skewing the statistics?

There is no racial element over here, its more to do with age. Younger people are apparently more attracted to menthol flavourings. Perhaps when I started smoking, I might have gone down the menthol route myself. But they were much less common then and were largely associated with ostentatious wankers.

I agree that people should be allowed to choose what they use, but when these legal drug pushers are using additives to attract younger users ( or shock, horror, even the blacks), that's when I stop agreeing with it.

 

[DeathIndustrial88]

Is it really a racial issue though? Or is it more a case of racist government agencies skewing the statistics?

There is no racial element over here, its more to do with age. Younger people are apparently more attracted to menthol flavourings. Perhaps when I started smoking, I might have gone down the menthol route myself. But they were much less common then and were largely associated with ostentatious wankers.

I agree that people should be allowed to choose what they use, but when these legal drug pushers are using additives to attract younger users ( or shock, horror, even the blacks), that's when I stop agreeing with it.

But adults like having options too though. lol

It's definitely wrong to want to attract that demographic to a harmful addictive substance, I agree.

I wonder how there could be a balance? Maybe harsher punishments for people who sell kids cigs or alcohol, rather than taking away the choices of adults? Seems tough tho. I wouldn't have wanted my mom in a bunch of shit for buying my cigs as a teenager. I could have chose not to smoke them as well.


What I find pretty twisted is that I've tried all the replacement therapies to get off cigarettes, including rolling my own which would save me a ton more money & even though I could feel the nicotine, I still felt like I wasn't getting that "fix". That's when I asked around on here & why a cheap rolled cigarette doesn't satisfy me like a commercial brand. And they mention it having something to possible do with MAOI's I believe, which can make the commercial cigarettes much more addictive & give more of a dopamine hit.

So I can't even save money by switching to rolled my own because they're actually harsher on my throat & lungs than a commercial brand & no matter how many I smoke, I still crave a "real" cigarette. They always fail to bring up all the other "addictive" things that are in these commercial cigarettes. There's an obvious difference.

So not only do they wanna remove your options but they wanna rob you blind too with whatever they got while they're at it & get you hooked on one uniform product. I think the whole thing is sick regardless of who they are targeting at this point, because they've done something to make sure you can't even make your own and feel satisfied anymore. I dunno. Vaping & patches & gum never worked for me either. In fact the gum gave me nausea, the patches made my heart race worse than having a cigarette & vapes fuck up my breathing even more than cigarettes too!

 

[thegreenhand]

Is it really a racial issue though? Or is it more a case of racist government agencies skewing the statistics?

What incentive would there be for the govt to skew the statistics on this issue? I’m not sure why they would want to do that

 

[F.U.B.A.R.]

I believe that all drugs should be freely available to anyone who wants them. But when the suppliers start adding shit to their products to make them more attractive and increase profits, that's when they become 'pushers' rather than 'dealers'.


I made the switch from ready rolleds to rolling tobacco many years ago, for purely economic reasons. I didn't find rollups at all satisfying for a while. But now, I find ready rolleds to be disgusting, smelly and harsh on the throat.


However, if I've not had a smoke for 12 hours or so, then have a cigarette,as the first fag of the day, I get that famed nicotine rush. I don't get that with roll ups. So yes, it's all down to the additives again...

 

[F.U.B.A.R.]

What incentive would there be for the govt to skew the statistics on this issue? I’m not sure why they would want to do that

What incentive would there be for the government to start the war on drugs?


Entirely selfish reasons, that's what.

 

[thegreenhand]

What incentive would there be for the government to start the war on drugs?


Entirely selfish reasons, that's what.

Fair enough

But I guess if we start getting into the realm of questioning the numbers, how can we use govt data to then show menthols are more addictive ? Because under your assumption the numbers can’t be trusted as govt agencies are skewing thing as they see fit right ?

I’m not sure the argument of “well maybe the statistics are bad” really holds, unless you can point out genuine problems in their statistical analysis.

We have to take some things as a priori to get anywhere meaningful in this discussion, and I personally think CDC published figures qualify as being true enough to form an argument from

 

[mal3volent]

the first fag of the day

First fag of the day is always the best.

 

[Burnt Offerings]

Was it hip to tie things back to segregation in the 1960s? Or perhaps that was simply one of the large issues of that era. In my opinion, the war on drugs was the evolution of segregation so it makes logical sense to tie issues of banning drugs back to racial oppression when that has been the effect of most drug war policies

I agree that a framing of socioeconomic class is unfortunately often left out in modern discussion, but I think it would be intellectually dishonest to say that race and socioeconomic class don’t overlap due to both past and current institutional racism

Yeah I would agree that the so-called "war on drugs" has a heavy racial dynamic attached to it...I think that's easily verified from even the most cursory look at the evolution of the policy from the early 1970s to the present day. The United States is a country that is obsessed with the concept of "race", all throughout its history (and to those you admonish the yanks to "just move on" from the issue, easier said than done lol), and you can (and people have) made a convincing argument that the war on drugs is simply the most recent iteration of a major civil rights violation, the one which followed the previous iteration of segregation and Jim Crow.

But the policy has spread far beyond those confines, which is why I feel that it's of limited value to focus one's analysis solely on the race issue when discussing the war on drugs and the implications related to it. How does that analysis account for predominantly-white communities in the rural USA that have been blighted by the punitive effects of the war on drugs and the carceral state, for example? It may have been pioneered in the African American communities throughout the 80s, 90s etc, but once you start denying rights to your fellow citizens it never stops at one community. And in such situation it's always the poor and lower-working class that bears the brunt of it

 

[F.U.B.A.R.]

First fag of the day is always the best.

 

[thegreenhand]

Yeah I would agree that the so-called "war on drugs" has a heavy racial dynamic attached to it...I think that's easily verified from even the most cursory look at the evolution of the policy from the early 1970s to the present day. The United States is a country that is obsessed with the concept of "race", all throughout its history (and to those you admonish the yanks to "just move on" from the issue, easier said than done lol), and you can (and people have) made a convincing argument that the war on drugs is simply the most recent iteration of a major civil rights violation, the one which followed the previous iteration of segregation and Jim Crow.

But the policy has spread far beyond those confines, which is why I feel that it's of limited value to focus one's analysis solely on the race issue when discussing the war on drugs and the implications related to it. How does that analysis account for predominantly-white communities in the rural USA that have been blighted by the punitive effects of the war on drugs and the carceral state, for example? It may have been pioneered in the African American communities throughout the 80s, 90s etc, but once you start denying rights to your fellow citizens it never stops at one community. And in such situation it's always the poor and lower-working class that bears the brunt of it

i wasnt trying to imply that the war on drugs is solely a race issue but I see how my writing may have come off like that

i do think those white communities tend to get more sympathy though. everyone wants harm reduction now that opioids hit rural white folk, but crack among inner city blacks had most people calling out for punitive measures. It’s something to consider at least

that said, I would largely agree that a framing of socioeconomic class is a much better lens to view the the drug war than race.

that doesn’t however imply that we can never use race to frame the issue… my initial comment was in reference to this menthol ban mostly affecting black people, hence I see this particular debate as one that is apt to be viewed through a lens of race. again, that’s not to say we should only use race to frame the issue. But in this particular case I think it fits quite well. Thus, imo it’s not the trendy virtue signaling that you implied it was.

 

[arrall]

I'm against the ban. It's absurd to think it will create any significant drop in tobacco use. People who don't want to smoke won't. People who do will.

My thoughts exactly. Your government does not have the right to tell you what you can and cannot put in or do with your body.

 

[LucidSDreamr]

I hate to agree with the fda, but from my experience as an ex smoker, I never would have smoked as much or as long if it wasn't menthol.

Have u learned anything of prohibition of alcohol, weed, oxy? They resulted in methanol, K2, and fentanyl.

Every single time drug prohibition happens the black market replaces it with something more toxic and nobody stops drugs.

The solution to this is dripping a menthol solution onto regular cigarettes, both easily accessible. This will stop no one.

-GC

Yes...but now this will be performed in the black market and god knows what menthol they might use that might be tainted.


What really baffles me is that weed damages the lungs and is more addictive (to me at least) than cigs and weed is being legalized everywhere. Makes no sense

 

[ChemicallyEnhanced]

Oh...was thinking this would be because the menthol in them crystallizes in the lungs...not some incredibly stupid stuff about it being a "flavour to entice kids"....oh, yeah, that yummy, yummy menthol flavour that's so popular in candy and soft drinks..

 

[deficiT]

I see the Biden administration really has it's priorities in line