And when the Obama administration first banned flavored cigarettes like a decade back. They were heavily criticized for leaving Menthol out. On grounds that they weren’t addressing the way tobacco companies deliberately target non-white communities. Together with the fact that menthol is the way cigarette companies get teens and young adults to start. Which was the whole justification for the ban in the first place.
It’s not coincidental that the Black community tends to prefer menthol. Or that young people and women are more into it. It’s very deliberately marketed at those segments. Consequently smoking rates are higher among non-whites, and particularly among Black men.
The cigars are a similar gap in the original bans. Tobacco companies started pushing flavored cigars that are basically cigarettes but wrapped in a tobacco based paper after the flavor ban, and to skate on additional taxes. That bit could be better targeted. I don’t think blunt wraps and actual cigars are much of a pathway to a pack a day habit.
But this is all basically a gap in the original ban that was left, at the behest of the tobacco companies. So that they could continue to target non-whites as a rare growth sector.
And especially given our usual approach is insanely regressive tax increases at retail. It just seems like fixing a fuck up to me.
