Outlawing Menthol Cigarettes: Are They That Cynical Or Are They That Stupid?

For the last five years or so, every aspect of American life has increasingly become a nonstop referendum on our racial differences.  The provocative language of college campus diversity classes has seeped into the mainstream American political conversation, and we've never hated each other more as a result of it.  Particularly in the past year, after George Floyd's killing at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis, a hot-blooded litigation of race has been the beginning, middle, and end of every cultural and policy conversation.  Advocates for marijuana legalization have cleverly piggybacked on the racial justice theme as just cause for advancing their policy preference, and more recently, some states have even begun to decriminalize possession of cocaine, meth, and heroin, also in the name of fighting systemic racism and reducing encounters between police and nonviolent people of color.

Yet amidst this backdrop, Biden's FDA quietly proceeded last week with a plan to criminalize menthol cigarettes.  More than 20 million Americans smoke menthol cigarettes, the majority of whom are people of color.  Eighty-five percent of black smokers smoke menthols.  But somehow, the same social justice advocates calling for legalizing marijuana and hard drugs in the name of fighting racism were likewise at the forefront of the calls to outlaw menthols cigarettes, also in the name of fighting racism.  The cognitive dissonance is so brazen that any person who applies a nanosecond of critical thinking to the dueling proposals can only ask....are they that cynical or are they that stupid?

A well-funded industry of anti-smoking radicals has been carpet-bombing the country with their moral panic about nicotine for a generation now.  For them, it's always gonna be a situation of the ends justifying the means, even if it means reclassifying tens of millions of American smokers as criminals.  They will detonate a nuclear bomb to destroy that ant hill without giving it a second thought.  But those not directly on the payroll of Big Anti-Tobacco may well be guided primarily by misguided naivete and a failure to grasp the far-reaching consequences of handing over 20 million American consumers to the waiting arms of organized crime.  

Prohibitions waged by the ruling class to teach a lesson to those they deem to be their moral inferiors are always stupid, but this particular prohibition will impose even more wreckage than most given its direct impact on the black community. A black market vacuum will inevitably fill the void left behind by the disparity between supply and demand, and like all black markets, it will be a lucrative draw for young people of color in socioeconomically vulnerable communities.  Meanwhile, stores whose commerce is regulated will take a big hit.  Many convenience stores say they're only able to keep their doors open based on the profit they make by selling cigarettes.  In black communities, many of those stores will close if the cigarettes preferred by most black consumers are outlawed, putting the delicate ecosystem of the urban economy in further peril.  People of color who own and/or work in those stores will lose their livelihoods.  Consumers who need those stores for everything from gas to produce will one day find themselves approaching a shuttered storefront door on their way to pick up groceries.  Is it really worth this kind of hardship just for the thrill of wagging a scolding finger in the faces of smokers?  Biden's FDA certainly seems to think so.

The ACLU and Reverend Al Sharpton have been courageous critics against this prohibitionist insanity.  They wisely point out that after enduring two generations of disparate criminal justice standards for mostly black crack arrests and mostly white cocaine arrests, Biden's FDA is about to repeat the same mistake on a massively larger scale with menthol versus nonmenthol cigarettes.  They've also pointed out that tobacco has been a common denominator in many of the most high-profile encounters between police and nonviolent people of color that have ended in death, ranging from Eric Garner to Sandra Bland to George Floyd.  Expect many, many more such encounters with Biden's FDA exploding the ranks of people of color reclassified as criminals for using or selling menthol cigarettes or flavored cigars.  Large numbers of young black people will go to prison because of what Biden's FDA is doing.  Additional young black people will be killed by police as a consequence of what Biden's FDA is doing.  And those grumbling the most about systemic racism will have every drop of that blood on their hands.

Sharpton and the ACLU may stop short of saying it but I will.  The puritans and prohibitionists behind the criminalization of menthol cigarettes are poised to deliver a vastly more devastating setback to the fight against "systemic racism" than any group of rednecks in MAGA hats could ever dream of doing.  I've been shutting out the monstrously divisive bile from these demagogues as much as possible already, but after this, my respect for them has officially cratered to absolute zero.  Are they that cynical or are they that stupid?  Apparently both.