Dozens of health advocacy groups are calling on the United Nations to pressure U.S. regulators to ban menthol tobacco products, citing evidence that manufacturers market directly to black people.
Nearly 100 advocacy groups, including the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council, the American Heart Association, and Action on Smoking and Health, will appeal to the U.N. Human Rights Council to restrict the marketing of menthol-flavored products in the U.S. on the grounds that black people are targeted by tobacco companies, according to Bloomberg.
RACIALLY CHARGED ATMOSPHERE COULD SPELL END OF MENTHOL CIGARETTES
“The decades of well-documented racialized and predatory tobacco industry targeting of African Americans, specifically with menthol flavoring, is a human rights issue,” the groups said in the letter to be sent on Wednesday.
The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the U.S. tobacco market, has long aimed to crack down on menthol products, which disproportionately addict black people. But tobacco companies have repeatedly overcome regulatory efforts, arguing that menthol products have not been proven more addictive or dangerous than plain, unflavored tobacco.
An estimated 16,000 black people die from lung cancer each year, and deaths due to smoking are about 18% higher for black people than white people, according to the University of California, San Francisco Smoking Cessation Leadership Center.
Congress has already banned all other flavors from being added to tobacco products.
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The FDA is expected to unveil new regulations on menthol tobacco products on April 29 in answer to a lawsuit filed last year by the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council in which advocates argued the agency has repeatedly failed to act.
U.S. regulators are also reportedly considering limits on the amount of nicotine permitted in tobacco products such as cigarettes so that the likelihood of becoming addicted decreases.
