Sharpton urging Biden admin to stub out menthol cigarette ban, claims a black market could lead to deadly clashes like Eric Garner’s
The Rev. Al Sharpton is urging the Biden administration to halt its plan to ban menthol cigarettes, saying the move would only lead to an illicit market and potentially deadly clashes such as the Eric Garner case.
Sharpton’s National Action Network fired off a letter to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf citing the case of Garner, who died in July 2014 on Staten Island after being put in an illegal chokehold by an NYPD officer trying to arrest the 43-year-old resident for selling untaxed loose cigarettes.
The FDA sent its final pitch for the ban to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget in October for review, signaling the menthol mandate is in its last stages of approval.
OMB is set to conduct interviews with experts and others about the issue over the next three months before moving on the proposal, according to the agency’s website.
“Menthol prohibitions will create illicit markets and more police interactions, especially in minority communities,” NAN wrote in a June 2022 letter to Califf that was obtained by The Post. “For example, Eric Garner was a black killed by the NYPD for selling loose, untaxed cigarettes,”
“NAN is uniquely qualified to offer a valuable civil rights perspective on our concerns? and the unintended consequences,” said the letter, which lists Sharpton along with NAN Chairman Franklyn Richardson.
“Historically, policies that lead to prohibitions have profound racial justice implications,” the organization added.
The civil-rights leaders asked why federal officials were targeting a ban on menthol cigarettes, which are disproportionately favored by black smokers, while other cigs smoked by whites were not being outlawed.
“Advocates for the proposed rule have not been able to explain why the preferred product for black adult smokers will be subject to ban while the select products of most will remain legal and available,” the NAN leaders said.
They said the ban “puts a microscope on minority communities.”
The preachers also said they were baffled by the push for prohibition, given how smoking rates are significantly down overall anyway.
Sharpton and Richardson even took on a libertarian tone.
“The role of government in a free society is to protect one’s rights from being violated by their fellow citizens, not to ensure that individuals never make adverse personnel decisions,” the NAN letter said. “If some people continue to smoke despite all these factors, they should be free to do so.
“This proposed rule will not reduce the number of people smoking: Instead it will increase the number of people who use illicit tobacco, creating an underground market for menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars that will go unregulated,” the NAN leaders wrote.
“Prohibition will entice black market suppliers and criminal networks to meet the demand, just as alcohol and drug prohibitions have historically demonstrated will trigger criminal penalties, disproportionately impacting people of color and prioritizing criminalization over public health and harm reduction.”
The civil rights advocates said they favored health education programs and smoking cessation programs and other measures “that do not have serious implications for unintended consequences.”
Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, is also spearheading a campaign against the menthol ban. She even last week urged Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to come out against the proposed prohibition.
Opposition from Carr, Sharpton and others stalled attempts in New York in Albany and the New York City Council to ban menthol cigs.
The issue has divided the black community. The NAACP backs the menthol ban, arguing the tobacco industry has marketed to black residents to hook them on flavored smokes.
Sharpton told The Post on Sunday that Carr is a member of NAN and that he and the organization were following her lead on the issue.
President Biden’s FDA in April 2021 announced a proposed federal rule to outlaw the minty cigarettes, along with flavored cigars — both of which, the agency noted, are disproportionately popular with black smokers.
At the time, the FDA cited a study that indicated a menthol ban would prompt 923,000 smokers — including 230,000 black Americans — to quit within 13 to 17 months.
