cigarettes

The Congressional Black Caucus is leading an effort to push the government toward greater regulation of menthol cigarettes, which are popular among African Americans and considered by some to be more dangerous than traditional cigarettes.
"We are very aware and gravely concerned about the disproportionate incidence of lung cancer in the African-American community and, along with so many minority health experts, have long been concerned about the role menthol may play," Congresswoman Donna Christensen (D-VI) told the New York Times on Monday. In an interview with The Daily Voice on Wednesday, Christensen said, "We want to establish that the FDA has the authority to regulate menthol."
Eighty-nine percent of African-American smokers smoke menthol cigarettes, compared to 29 percent of European Americans, and menthol cigarette advertisements target blacks, according to one report.
"Each year approximately 45,000 African Americans die from a preventable smoking-related disease," according to the National African American Tobacco Education Network, an anti-tobacco group. Although blacks do not appear to smoke more than any other demographic group, the organization says that African American men are "at least 50 percent more likely to develop lung cancer than white men."
Christensen is proposing to end a regulatory exemption on menthol cigarettes that currently limits the Food and Drug Administration's authority to ban it. After about 10 years of trying to push the bill in Congress, there is a fragile agreement with the FDA "regulating the battle" because of all the parties involved, she said.
The challenges don't end with Congress. "The president has said he is going to veto the bill as it is now," said Christensen. But if the bill is passed with the menthol provision in it, the government will then have "the authority to ban it based on the outcome of the research," she said.