Big Tobacco’s lie would help keep Black smokers in a deadly grip

The tobacco industry, says State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, claims Gov. Kathy Hochul is discriminating against Black communities by pushing to ban flavored tobacco, including menthol cigarettes and flavored smokeless tobacco. Let that sink in.

This is an industry whose product, when used as intended, is liable to lead to emphysema, heart disease, lung cancer and even death. It knows that Black smokers disproportionately favor menthol-flavored cigarettes. It wants to secure that market even as its product threatens to kill its members.

And no wonder. The industry has poured money into the effort. As The New York Times reports, decades of aggressive marketing has led Black smokers to prefer menthol cigarettes, whose cooling sensation on the throat makes them more appealing and addictive.

Nevertheless, Hochul’s push seems to be on “life support” as Hoylman-Sigal put it. The Manhattan Democrat supports Hochul’s effort but said last week that it needed her strong support. She should provide it.

Hochul’s effort is certainly controversial. It has even split the Black community. Some members see it as a welcome effort to reduce the high incidence of illness and death among Black smokers, but others worry about an increase in smuggling, the creation of a black market and what some see as offering another excuse for police to harass Black people.

These aren’t made-up worries. The arguments deserved a hearing. But what is insufficiently acknowledged is the cost of giving into them. We’re not talking about junk food or too much television or bad posture. The issue for too many is life and death. Adding grievous insult to the lethal injury is the sheer arrogance of Big Tobacco in claiming that Hochul is the one mistreating Black New Yorkers. It’s hypocrisy on steroids.

• Black Americans are the most likely racial group to be diagnosed with lung cancer, with a rate of 76.1 cases per 100,000 people. White patients were next, with a substantially lower rate of 69.7 per 100,000.

• Black men are, by sex, race and ethnicity, the nation’s most prevalent group of smokers, according to the American Lung Association.

• Life expectancy for smokers is at least 10 years shorter than for nonsmokers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while quitting before age 40 reduces the risk of dying from smoking-related disease by about 90%.

So, based on the CDC report that smoking causes more than 480,000 deaths annually, including deaths from secondhand smoke, quitting by 40 could save some 432,000 lives every year. Banning menthol and other flavored cigarettes won’t accomplish all of that, of course, but it’s a useful strategy.

What is more, at least some of the alarms seem to be false. For example, a recent study found that banning menthol cigarettes didn’t prompt more people in Canada to buy illicit cigarettes and found no change in the number of people who bought cigarettes on tribal lands. Canada banned menthol cigarettes in 2015.

Interestingly, another study of Canadian smokers, based on data from the International Tobacco Control Project, found more menthol smokers than regular cigarette smokers quit smoking after the ban went into effect. It also found there was a 7.3% increase in smoking cessation after the ban.

These are compelling numbers. The Canadian ban has saved lives, preserved families and saved health care dollars. It did so through a reasonable response to a product whose makers have long known of its addictive properties and who have relied on them – even manipulated them – in an immoral project to accumulate wealth based on promoting disease. And Black Americans have been the primary victims.

Maybe this ban won’t pass this year. If not, Hochul should come back to it, perhaps after consulting with Black leaders. Whatever happens, though, everyone should understand that when Big Tobacco claims Hochul is being mean to New York’s Black residents, it’s blowing smoke.

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