5/13/08

NYT: Cigarette Companies and Congress Want to Keep Killing Blacks

Stop killing blacks with cigarettes? It's just not "doable."
Cigarette Bill Treats Menthol With Leniency
By STEPHANIE SAUL

Some public health experts are questioning why menthol, the most widely used cigarette flavoring and the most popular cigarette choice of African-American smokers, is receiving special protection as Congress tries to regulate tobacco for the first time.

The legislation, which would give the Food and Drug Administration the power to oversee tobacco products, would try to reduce smoking’s allure to young people by banning most flavored cigarettes, including clove and cinnamon.

But those new strictures would exempt menthol — even though menthol masks the harsh taste of cigarettes for beginners and may make it harder for the addicted to kick the smoking habit. For years, public health authorities have worried that menthol might be a factor in high cancer rates in African-Americans.

The reason menthol is seen as politically off limits, despite those concerns, is that mentholated brands are so crucial to the American cigarette industry. They make up more than one-fourth of the $70 billion American cigarette market and are becoming increasingly important to the industry leader, Philip Morris USA, without whose lobbying support the legislation might have no chance of passage.

“I would have been in favor of banning menthol,” said Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, who supports the bill. “But as a practical matter that simply wasn’t doable.” ...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

that is the most asinine headline you have ever posted.
so someone said african americans popularly enjoy the menthol taste? puhleeze.

John D. Enright said...

Forget about the previous poster(Fuhgetaboutit). You're right on this issue. Go figure.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous,
Go easy on Tzvee and his headlines.
He has already admitted that he sometimes uses asinine headlines. For example:

//Yesha rabbis responsible for yeshiva massacre//


"I just put up the headline saying that they were responsible for the attack. Demonstrates the same absence of sanity."